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BERKE 

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UNIVERSITY 
CALIFORNIA 


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THE 

SOCIALISTS 

WHO  THEY  ARE  AND 
WHAT  THEY  STAND  FOR 

THE  CASE  FOR  SOCIALISM 
PI<AINI<Y  STATED 

BT 

JOHN  ^SPARGO 

AuTHOB  OF  The  Bitter  Cry  op  the  CnmbRBN,  Where 

We  Stand,  Forces  That  Make  for  Socialism 

IN  America,  A  Socialist  View  of 

Mb.  Rockefeller,  Etc. 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KKRR  &  COMPANY 

1908 


Copyright  igoS 

BY 

Chaeles  H.  Kerr  &  Company 


mt^ 
sn 


To 
Henry  L.  Slobodin, 

A  brave  comrade  and  tireless  worker  for  Socfalisnit 

this  little  propaganda  book  is  affectionately 

inscribed 


804 


"We  are  they  whose  bugle  rings,  that  all  wars 

may  cease; 
We  are  they  will  pay  the  Kings  their  cruel  price 

for  Peace; 
We  are  they  whose  steadfast  watchword  h  what 

Christ  did  teach— r 
Each   man   for   his   brother  first,   and  Heaven, 

then,  for  each." 

"We  are  they  who  will  not  faltei — many  swords 

or  few — 
Till  we  make  this  earth  the  altar  of  a  worship 

new; 
We  are  they  who   will    not    take   from  palace, 

priest,  or  code, 
A  meaner  law  than  'Brotherhood' — a  lower  Lord 
than  God." 

Edwin  Arnold. 


CONTENTS 


i. 

Pertinent  Questions    -           -           - 

7 

n. 

Socialism  Not  a  Scheme 

12 

ni. 

The  Old  Socialism  and  the  New 

18 

IV. 

The  Socialist  View  of  Social  Evolu- 

tion          .            .            -            . 

21 

V. 

Socialism  Not  a  Theory  of  Economic 

Fatalism        .            -            .            _ 

26 

VI. 

The    Capitalist    System    and    Class 

Divisions              .            -            - 

34 

VII. 

Condition  of  the  Workers 

39 

VIII. 

The  Division  of  Wealth    - 

44 

IX. 

The  Conflict  of  Class  Interests 

52 

X. 

The  Individual  Versus  the  Class 

60 

XI. 

Present  Methods  of  Class  Warfare 

64 

XII. 

To  End  Class  Warfare    - 

71 

"XIII. 

Social  Versus  Private  Property 

77 

XIV. 

The  Relation  of  Public  Ownership 

to  Socialism 

86 

XV. 

The  Missing  Spirit     -            -            - 

94 

XVI. 

Some  Objections  Considered      - 

103 

XVII. 

Conclusion       -            _            _            . 

184 

Appendices— 

I. 

A  Dream  Which  Must  Come  True 

140 

II. 

A  Suggested  Course  of  Reading  for 

Students  of  Socialism 

144 

THE  SOCIALISTS 

I 

PERTINENT  QUESTIONS 

**Who  are  the  Socialists?"  and 
"What  do  they  stand  for?"  are  ques- 
tions frequently  heard  in  these  days. 
We  hear  them  on  the  streets,  in  the 
workshops,  on  the  cars;  wherever 
men  and  women  congregate  these 
questions,  and  others  of  a  like  nature, 
are  heard. 

It  is  perfectly  right  and  proper  that 
they  should  be  asked,  for  unless  the 
Socialists  are  understood  how  can 
they  be  fairly  and  intelligently 
judged?  The  Socialists  are  a  grow- 
ing force  in  this  country.  At  the  last 
'election  they  polled  409,230  votes  as 
against  96,931  in  1900,  so  that  they 
increased  their  strength  322  per  cent, 
in  four  years.  The  late  Mark  Hanna 
7 


8  THE  SOCIALISTS 

saw  this  party  growing  at  a  tremen- 
dous, but  steady,  rate,  and  over  and 
over  again  declared  that  in  the  course 
of  a  few  years  there  must  be  a  definite 
struggle  upon  a  clear  issue  between 
the  Republican  Party  and  the  Social- 
ist Party.  That  prophecy  may  or 
may  not  be  true — prophecy  is  a  pretty 
risky  business! — but  it  is  certainly 
true  that  all  the  signs  of  the  times 
seem  to  point  that  way. 

In  Germany  the  Socialists  are 
rapidly  growing  in  numbers  and 
strength,  and  it  is  universally  con- 
ceded, by  friends  and  foes  alike,  that 
they  are  invariably  on  the  side  of 
peace,  pirogress,  and  purity  of  govern- 
ment. In  Italy,  France,  Belgium, 
England,  and  other  European  coun- 
tries, the  same  thing  is  true.  It  is 
always  known  with  absolute  certainty 
what  stand  the  Socialists  will  take  up- 
on any  question  involving  the  inter- 
ests of  the  working  class.  They  are 
always  on  the  side  of  the  workers  in 


PERTINENT  QUESTIONS  9 

their  struggles  for  better  conditions; 
they  are  always  against  the  oppression 
of  the  weak  by  the  strong.  Even 
their  opponents  admit  that  the  Social- 
ists in  all  countries  where  they  have 
any  influence  are  doing  more  to  pro- 
mote international  peace  and  good- 
will than  any  other  body  of  people, 
whether  religious  or  political.  And 
the  same  might  be  said  of  their  in- 
fluence on  the  side  of  decency  and 
honesty  in  government.  The  Social- 
ists are  always  the  most  implacable 
foes  of  corruption  and  graft.  All  our 
authorities  who  have  gone  to  Euro- 
pean cities  to  investigate  the  subject 
in  connection  with  municipal  problems 
have  borne  testimony  to  this  fact. 
But  we  need  not  go  to  Europe  for 
proof  of  this.  Wherever  in  this  coun- 
try Socialists  have  been  elected  they 
have  fearlessly  and  consistently  ex- 
posed graft  and  corruption  wherever 
found.  Not  long  ago,  for  example, 
the  wholesale  corruption  in   Milwau- 


lO  THE  SOCIALISTS 

kee  attracted  almost  universal  atten- 
tion. The  Socialists  were  in  the  van- 
guard of  the  fight  for  decent,  honest 
government,  and  they  elected  several 
of  their  representatives.  Ever  since 
they  have  been  elected  these  men 
have  been  resolutely  pursuing  the 
grafters  and  have  done  more  to  rescue 
the  city  from  the  clutches  of  the  gar- 
roting  boodlers  than  all  the  "Reform'' 
parties  Milwaukee  ever  had. 

Now,  it  is  not  claimed  for  the  Soc- 
ialists that  they  are  superior  beings, 
better  men  and  women  than  other 
people.  They  are  not  perfectionists. 
They  do  not  take  their  stand  on  the 
side  of  the  weak  and  oppressed,  and 
against  war  and  plunder  of  the  public 
treasuries,  because  they  are  of  a  sup- 
erior moral  or  intellectual  order.  No 
Socialist  would  make  such  a  claim, 
and  no  sensible  man  or  woman  would 
believe  him  if  he  did.  What,  then,- 
is  the  reason  of  this  strange  phenom- 
enon— how  shall  we  account  for  the 


PERTINENT  QUESTIONS  II 

fact  that  a  great  world-wide  party, 
counting  its  adherents  by  the  million 
and  constantly  growing,  a  party  that 
is  g'aining  ground  in  all  parts  of 
Europe,  America,  Australia,  Africa, 
and  even  Asia,  should  always  be 
fouiid  enlisting  all  its  strength  on  the 
side  of  Justice  and  Right?  To  ans- 
wer these  questions  is  the  purpose  of 
this  little  book. 


12  THE  SOCIALISTS 


II 

SOCIALISM  NOT  A  SCHEME 

Socialism  is  not  a  plan,  or  scheme, 
which  philosophers  have  evolved  for 
re-shaping  all  the  institutions  of  so- 
ciety. No  Socialist  can  give  speci- 
fications of  the  society  of  the  future. 
With  Hudibras,  the  Socialist  might 
say: 

"Reforming  schemes  are  none  of  mine, 
To  mend  the  world  is  a  vast  design. 

Like  those  who  ply  with  little  boat 
To  tug  to  them  the  ship  afloat." 

In  all  ages  of  the  w^orld's  recorded 
history  there  have  been  men  w^ho, 
dissatisfied  v^ith  the  existing  order, 
have  dreamed  of  an  ideal  social  sys- 
tem. The  stern  Hebrew  prophet, 
Isaiah,  exultingly  heralded  the  coming 
of  an  all-embracing  world-peace  when 
swords    shall    be    beaten    into    plow- 


SOCIALISM   NOT  A  SCHEME  I3 

shares  and  spears  into  pruninghooks, 
and  the  strife  of  nations  forever  cease. 
Plato,  the  wise  Greek,  conceived  in 
his  great  mind  an  ideal  Republic.  Sir 
Thomas  More,  the  martyr  statesman 
of  sixteenth  century  England,  called 
the  social  state  of  his  fancy  Utopia. 
Campanella,  the  Italian  monk,  dream- 
ed, in  his  prison  cell,  of  the  City  of 
the  Sun.  The  literature  of  the  world 
abounds  with  such  social  visions  as 
these,  testifying  to  man's  eternal  dis- 
content with  and  rebellion  against 
inequality  and  injustice,  and  to  a  uni- 
versal aspiration  toward,  and  belief  in, 
justice,   equality  and  brotherhood. 

Many  of  these  fanciful  descriptions 
of  the  ideal  social  state,  from  Plato's 
"Republic''  to  Bellamy's  "Looking 
Backward"  and  Howells'  "Altruria," 
contain  much  that  appeals  to  the  So- 
cialist and  in  a  general  way  corre- 
sponds to  the  Socialist  criticism  of  ex- 
isting society,  and  serves  to  picture  ob- 
j^i^tively  the  possibility  of  the  applica- 


14  THE  SOCIALISTS 

tion  of  the  fundamental  Socialist  prin- 
ciple of  common  ownership  and  control 
to  the  life  of  the  world.  Because  of 
this  many  earnest  and  well-meaning 
people  have  tried  to  hold  Socialism 
responsible  for  the  vagaries  of  these 
visionaries.  They  have  seized  upon 
certain  features  of  these  "cloud  pal- 
aces for  an  ideal  humanity",  such  as 
the  community  of  wives  advocated  by 
Plato  and  Campanella,  or  the  various 
ingenious  devices  of  Bellamy's  very 
mechanical  and  uninviting  dream- 
world, and  treated  them  as  if  they 
were  essential  features  of  the  great 
modern  Socialist  movement.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  bear  no  such  re- 
lation to  the  Socialist  movement, 
which  must  be  judged  by  its  authori- 
tative literature  and  its  programmes 
alone. 

Now  it  happens  that  the  word  "So- 
cialism" itself  was  first  used,  in  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  describe  the  "reforming  schemes" 


SOCIALISM    NOT  A  SCHEME  IS 

of  Robert  Owen,  the  great  English 
philanthropist  and  social  reformer. 
Owen  was  the  ablest  and  most  prac- 
tical of  the  great  number  of  social  in- 
novators produced  in  Europe  by  the 
combined  influences  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  the  industrial  revolu- 
tion in  England  brought  about  by  the 
introduction  of  great  mechanical  in- 
ventions. These  would-be-world-build- 
ers had  one  thing  in  common,  how- 
ever much  they  disagreed  about 
everything  else.  They  all  believed 
that  the  world  could  be  re-shaped  to 
the  plan  they  desired.  They  knew 
that  the  dream  of  a  perfect  social 
system  was  ages  and  ages  old,  but 
believed  that  only  human  ignorance 
had  stood  in  the  way  of  its  fulfillment. 
What  the  world  needed,  they  thought, 
was  a  man  of  great  inventive  genius, 
or  of  divine  inspiration,  to  show  ex- 
actly how  such  a  system  could  be 
arranged.  Of  course,  every  leader 
or  aspirant  to  leadership  believed  him- 


l6  THE  SOCIALISTS 

self  to  be  the  genius,  or  the  divinely 
inspired  agent,  for  whom  the  world 
had  waited  through  the  long  cen- 
turies. 

It  seems  strange  and  well  nigh  ridic- 
ulous nowadays  to  think  of  these  men 
going  around  the  world,  as  Robert 
Owen  and  his  disciples  did,  visiting 
monarchs,  congresses  of  monarchs, 
and  parliaments,  with  models,  maps 
and  charts  designed  to  show  exactly 
how  everything  would  be  in  the  new 
social  state.  But  we  must  not  forget 
that  we  live  in  an  age  that  is  domi- 
nated by  very  different  ideas  of  the 
universe  and  of  human  history  from 
those  with  which  they  were  familiar. 
Darwin  had  not  then  been  heard  of 
and  the  idea  of  special  creation  still 
held  sway  in  men's  minds.  The  view 
of  social  conditions  commonly  held 
was  that  God  had  so  ordained  them. 
Men  and  women  were  taught  to  be 
"content  in  the  station  whereto  Al- 
mighty God  had  been  pleased  to  call 


OLD   SOCIALISM    AND   NEW  \^ 

them."  The  more  daring  said  that 
man  was  responsible ;  that  all  the  mis- 
ery and  strife  in  the  world  was  due 
to  human  ignorance  and  sin.  There 
was  no  conception  of  social  evolution. 


l8  THE  SOCIALISTS 


III 

i       THE  OLD  SOCIAUSM  AND  THE  NEW 

The  development  of  the  theory  of 
evolution  and  its  appHcation  to  society 
came  at  a  time  v^hen  the  miserable 
failure  of  the  Utopian  Socialist 
schemes  had  for  the  moment  discred- 
ited the  Socialist  ideal.  Some  said 
that  the  Socialists  v^ere  flying  in  the 
face  of  Providence;  others  said  they 
were  vainly  struggling  against  human 
nature.  But  the  new  theory  of  life 
challenged  all  such  criticisms  as  these, 
and,  more  important  than  that,  gave 
new  life  to  the  Socialist  ideal.  The 
world  which  men  had  believed  to  be 
only  a  few  thousand  years  old  was 
shown  to  be  immeasurably  older;  the 
life  of  mankind  upon  the  earth  was 
shown  to  have  been  spent  under 
different     forms     of     social     relation, 


OLD    SOCIALISM    AND    NEW  19 

growing  naturally  out  of  each  other. 
The  old  Socialism  which  consisted 
of  ingenious  but  abortive  attempts 
to  create  new  social  systems  of  pre- 
conceived design,  to  begin  the  world's 
history  anew,  and  ignored  the  natural 
laws  of  progressive  development,  was 
dead.  Science  had  shown  the  causes 
of  the  failure  of  the  little  communal 
Islands  which  Owen  and  so  many 
others  sought  to  build  and  maintain 
in  the  hostile  currents  of  the  ocean 
of  competition.  It  had  destroyed  for 
ever  the  idea  that  new  social  systems 
could  be  made  to  order.  True,  a  few 
visionaries  remained  who  still  con- 
tinued to  make  the  effort.  A  few 
such  belated  survivals  remain  with  us 
to  this  day,  but  the  Socialist  move- 
ment has  nothing  to  do  with  their 
schemes.  The  new  Socialism  rose. 
Phoenix  like,  from  the  ashes  of  the 
old  Utopian  Socialism,  or,  in  other 
vords,  the  new  scientific  movement 
iook    the    place    of    the    old    Utopian 


20  THE  SOCIALISTS 

movement  when  science  demonstrated 
that  the  failure  of  the  latter  was  due 
to  its  own  inherent  weaknesses. 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  21 


IV 

THE  SOCIAUST  VIEW  OF  SOCIAL 
EVOLUTION 

Modern  Socialism,  then,  claims 
jjfcxentific  parentage.  It  is,  fundament- 
ally, a  theory  of  social  evolution — a 
recognition  of  all  that  is  comprehend- 
ed in  the  wonderfully  expressive 
phrase  of  Leibnitz :  ''The  present  is 
the  child  of  the  past,  but  it  is  the 
parent  of  the  future."  We  must  be 
careful,  how^ever,  to  avoid  the  com- 
mon error,  into  which  even  some  So- 
cialists have  fallen,  of  confusing  the 
terms  Socialism  and  social  evolution 
and  regarding  them  as  synonymous. 
There  are  various  non-Socialist  theor- 
ies of  social  evolution,  and  while 
every  Socialist  believes  in  social 
evolution  not  every  believer  in  social 
evolution  believes  in  Socialism.  The 
essential  characteristic  of  the   Social- 


22  THE  SOCIALISTS 

ist  theory  of  social  evolution  is  the 
idea  variously  termed  "Economic  De- 
terminism ;''  "Historical  Materialism ;" 
"The  Economic  Interpretation  of  His- 
tory" and  "The  Materialist  Concept- 
ion of  History."  Reduced  to  common 
everyday  language,  these  academic 
terms  mean  simply  that  the  direction 
and  rate  of  social  progress  are  decid- 
ed mainly,  though  not  wholly,  by 
the  economic  conditions  existing — 
principally  the  means  of  producing 
and  distributing  the  means  of  life.  It 
is  perfectly  obvious  that  the  life  of  all 
human  beings  depends  upon  their 
securing  a  sufficient  supply  of  certain 
absolute  necessities,  chief  of  which 
is  food.  Any  very  serious  or  far- 
reaching  change  in  the  methods  by 
which  these  necessities  are  obtained, 
must,  it  is  evident,  seriously  affect 
the  whole  life  of  man. 

If,  for  example,  it  was  not  possible 
for  the  people  of  any  country  to  pro- 
duce   necessities    and    luxuries,    or    a 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  23 

surplus  of  necessities  with  which  to 
buy  luxuries,  necessities  only  would 
be  produced  and  there  would  be  no 
luxuries.  If  the  production  of  the 
actual  necessities  of  life  required  the 
labor  of  all  the  people,  affording  them 
no  opportunity  for  leisure,  then  all 
would  have  to  work.  There  would 
be  no  such  a  thing  as  a  leisured  class 
enjoying  the  fruits  of  the  toil  of  an- 
other class.  Only  the  fact  that  it  is 
possible  for  one  man  to  produce  more 
than  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  con- 
sume, or  its  equivalent  in  marketable 
value,  makes  possible  the  division  of 
society  into  classes  of  idlers  and  toil- 
ers, masters  and  slaves. 

It  is  impossible  in  this  little  book  to 
explain  fully  this  theory  of  the  devel- 
opment of  society  about  which  many 
elaborate  and  profound  volumes  have 
been  written.  It  is  only  possible  to 
indicate  in  a  general  way  what  its 
leading  principles  are.  Without  some 
idea  of  these  it  is  just  as  impossible 


24  THE  SOCIALISTS 

to  understand  the  Socialist  movement 
as  it  would  be  to  understand  math- 
ematics without  a  knowledge  of  the 
mathematical  signs.  If  we  take  the 
theory  and  test  it  by  applying  it  to  a 
single  event  we  shall  be  able  to  un- 
derstand it  more  easily.  Such  a  test 
will  perhaps  give  us  a  better  idea 
of  the  theory  and  its  limitations  than 
any  exposition  possible  in  these  pages. 
We  will  take,  therefore,  an  event  of 
interest  to  us  all — the  discovery  of 
the  American  continent  by  Christo- 
pher Columbus.  Much  has  been  writ- 
ten of  the  genius  of  Columbus,  and 
his  discovery  has  been  celebrated  by 
many  writers  as  the  glorious  fruitage 
of  a  brilliant  idea.  A  deeper  insight 
into  the  history  of  the  age  in  which 
he  lived,  however,  shows  that  the 
idea  itself  was  born  out  of  certain 
economic  conditions.  The  control 
by  the  Moors  in  Africa  and  the 
Turks  in  Europe  of  the  only  route 
of    transit    for    European    trade    with 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  2$ 

Hindostan,  and  their  extortion  of  im- 
mense revenues  from  the  traders 
through  that  control,  created  the 
necessity  of  a  new^  route  to  the 
v^orld's  treasure  land,  and  it  v^as, 
therefore,  the  direct  cause  of  the  ad- 
venturous voyage  of  Columbus  and 
his  splendid  discovery. 

The  same  principle  can  be  applied 
to  every  historical  epoch,  and  to  al- 
most every  important  social  or  polit- 
ical change.  The  American  Revolu- 
tion, the  Civil  War  and  the  war  with 
Spain  can  be  properly  understood 
only  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  eco- 
nomic conditions.  Scarcely  a  move  is 
made  on  the  chessboard  of  interna- 
tional politics  except  at  the  prompt- 
ings of  economic  considerations.  This 
is  now  pretty  generally  recognized  by 
the  greatest  historians  and  sociolo- 
gists though  few  of  them  make  known 
the  fact — in  many  cases  because  they 
are  unaware  of  it — that  it  is  a  car- 
dinal principle  of  the  Socialist  philos- 
ophy. 


26  THE  SOCIALISTS 


V. 

SOCIALISM  NOT  A  THEORY  OF  ECONOMIC 
FATALISM 

At  first  this  theory  may  appear  to 
be  harsh  and  repellant,  destroying 
all  man's  individuality,  making;  him 
a  mere  automaton,  and  involving  a 
mechanical  conception  of  social  prog- 
ress, a  rigid  economic  fatalism.  The 
theory  is  often  criticised  from  this 
point  of  view  and  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  the  exaggerations  of  the 
theory  by  some  Socialists  are  partly 
responsible  for  this.  But  Socialism 
does  not  rest  upon  any  such  fatalistic 
conception.  If  it  did  there  would  be 
no  justification  for  the  existence  of  a 
Socialist  movement  with  its  political 
party  organization,  its  ceaseless  prop- 
aganda, its  press  and  constantly  grow- 
ing  literature.      Man    is    not    only    a 


SOCIALISM    NOT   FATALISM  2/ 

creature  of  his  environment  in  com- 
mon with  the  lower  animals;  unlike 
them,  he  is  able,  within  certain  limits, 
to  change  his  environment.  Reason, 
the  sovereign  attribute  which  makes 
him  master  of  the  universe,  enables 
man  to  interpret  the  facts  of  his  daily- 
life,  to  understand  the  significance  of 
constant  changes  in  the  conditions  by 
which  he  is  surrounded,  and  to  seize 
lipon  the  opportunities  for  the  ad- 
vancement of  his  comfort  which  those 
changes  present.  In  a  word,  man  is 
able  to  understand  the  great  blind 
forces  of  progress,  in  some  measure 
to  direct  them,  and  to  profit  by  ev- 
ery change. 

The  age  in  which  we  live  has  been 
characterized  by  a  tremendous  change 
in  the  economic  conditions  of  society. 
During  the  greater  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  maxim,  **Competi- 
tion  is  the  life  of  trade,''  was  almost 
universally  accepted  as  being  well 
nigh  axiomatic.     The  introduction  of 


28  THE   SOCIALISTS 

machine  production  upon  a  large  scale 
and  the  opening  of  great  foreign  mar- 
kets made  possible  the  phenomenal 
industrial  and  commercial  develop- 
ment of  England,  which  country  re- 
mained for  fully  three-quarters  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  "workshop  of 
the  world/'  Unquestionably,  the  com- 
petition induced  by  the  incentive  of 
great  profits  which  the  new  indus- 
trial conditions  presented  was  an  all 
important  factor  in  the  development 
of  industry  and  commerce  which  led 
England  to  that  position,  and,  subse- 
quently, to  the  industrial  awakening 
of  other  countries  and  their  challenge 
of  England's  position.  Competition 
was  in  a  certain  very  real  and  definite 
sense  the  life  of  trade.  It  led  to  the 
elimination  of  the  unfit  by  competitors 
more  able  to  cope  with  difficulties, 
more  enterprising  and  progressive  and 
more  responsive  to  the  needs  of  con- 
sumers. The  vast  improvements  made 
in  the  methods  of  production  and  dis- 


SOCIALISM    NOT   FATALISM  29 

tribution  were,  in  the  main,  made 
under  the  urge  of  Competition's  re- 
lentless demand  for  cheapness  and 
efficiency. 

The  theoretic  economists  made  the 
very  natural  mistake  of  regarding  a 
transitory  economic  law  as  perma- 
nent. They  did  not  realize  that  com- 
petition could  only  be  the  life  of  trade 
during  a  certain  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment, and  that  beyond  that  stage  it 
could  only  mean  death.  There  were 
a  few  economists,  the  precursors  of 
the  modern  Socialist  school,  some  of 
whom  have  been  almost  entirely  for- 
gotten, who  ^  recognized  this.  They 
pointed  out  that  when  a  certain  stage 
of  development  was  reached,  the 
small,  ill-equipped  establishments  hav- 
ing given  way  to  larger  and  better 
equipped  establishments,  competition 
would  be  found  to  be  both  useless  and 
dangerous.  The  ruin  of  small  indus- 
tries by  the  greater  efficiency  of  their 
larger    competitors    was    due    to    the 


30  THE  SOCIALISTS 

ability  of  the  latter  to  economize  at 
every  point  by  means  of  better  ma- 
chinery, more  efficient  management, 
larger  capital,  and  so  on.  But  com- 
petition between  large  well  equipped 
concerns  involved  too  great  risks. 
Even  for  the  successful  competitor  it 
proved  to  be  a  costly  business,  and 
the  captains  of  industry  and  commerce 
found  that  competition  ceased  to  be  a 
desirable  stimulant.  Competition  had 
served  its  purpose  and  ceased  to  be 
the  life  of  trade. 

Sixty  years  ago  Karl  Marx,  great- 
est of  the  Socialist  economists,  pre- 
dicted this  end  of  the  competitive 
regime,  but  was  laughed  to  scorn  by 
the  economists  who  prostrated  them- 
selves at  the  shrine  of  competition. 
In  words  that,  as  Professor  R.  T.  Ely 
has  said,  seem  prophetic  now,  even 
to  non-Socialists,  he  showed  how  the 
dififerent  industrial  units  would  grow 
in  magnitude  through  the  absorption 
of  smaller  units  and  the  extinction  of 


SOCIALISM    NOT    FATALISM  3 1 

Others,  until  in  each  branch  of  in- 
dustry monopoly  would  ensue.*  Long 
before  the  economists  had  come  to 
attach  serious  importance  to  that  pre- 
diction, the  lords  of  industry  and  com- 
merce realized  it  in  their  actual  ex- 
periences. Today  the  defenders  of 
capitalism  are  not  engaged  in  praising 
competition,  but  in  decrying  it  and 
upholding  monopoly.  The  trust  prob- 
lem, which  is  the  most  significant 
economic  issue  of  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century,  marks  the  grave 
of  competition  and  the  fulfillment  of 
the  Socialist  economist's  prediction. 
With  the  exception  of  agriculture,  in 
which,  while  not  absent,  concentra- 
tion is  less  evident  than  elsewhere, 
the  whole  industrial  and  commercial 
life  of  the  great  nations  is  being  rap- 
idly concentrated  into  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  units.  Even  the  re- 
tail trade,  long  thought  to  be  exempt, 
is  rapidly  passing  into  the  control  of 
^Capital,  EnglisE  Edition,  p.  789. 


32  THE  SOCIALISTS 

large  combinations  of  capital,  while 
the  small  dealer  only  retains  his  foot- 
ing by  means  of  a  desperate  struggle 
and  with  returns  smaller,  in  a  great 
number  of  cases,  than  the  average 
wage  of  artisans. 

The  Socialist  points  to  this  growth 
of  monopoly  in  industry  not  merely 
for  vindication  of  the  prescient  crit- 
icisms of  Marx  and  other  Socialist 
writers,  but  also,  and  more  particu- 
larly, to  make  clear  the  point  that  the 
economic  changes  noted  make  pos- 
sible and  necessary  the  social  and 
political  change  to  an  industrial  dem- 
ocracy which  earlier  Utopian  dream- 
ers advocated  in  vain  because  the 
necessary  economic  conditions  did  not 
yet  exist.  The  transformation  of 
countless  small  industrial  and  com- 
mercial concerns  from  private  to  pub- 
lic property  was  impossible,  but  the 
transformation  of  great  industrial 
monopolies  to  public  or  social  monop- 
olies is  not  only  possible,  but  appeals 


SOCIALISM    NOT   FATALISM  33 

to  all  save  those  immediately  inter- 
ested in  them,  as  profit  takers,  as  the 
only  means  whereby  their  interests 
may  be  safeguarded.  The  trust  marks 
the  point  in  the  development  of  the 
capitalist  system  at  which  it  becomes 
possible  for  the  citizens  of  the  coun- 
try to  socialize  industry  without  loss 
of  efficiency.  The  end  of  the  capital- 
ist regime  and  the  inauguration  of  So- 
cialism becomes  now  a  matter  for  the 
intelligent  agreement  of  the  people. 


34  THE  SOCIALISTS 


VI. 

THE  CAPITALIST  SYSTEM  AND  CLASS 
DIVISIONS 

Capitalism,  or  the  capitalist  system, 
is  that  industrial  and  social  system  in 
which  the  production  of  goods  is  car- 
ried on,  not  primarily  for  the  use  and 
enjoyment  of  the  producers  and  their 
families,  but  by  wage-paid  laborers 
for  the  profit  of  a  class  of  employers 
and  traders.  This  system,  seen  in  em- 
bryo in  the  workshop  system  of  the 
non-chartered  towns  of  Europe  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
became  the  dominant  system  with  the 
industrial  revolution  of  the  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Only  ma- 
chinery and  a  highly  scientific  division 
of  labor  made  its  development  pos- 
sible. The  essential  features  of  cap- 
italism, then,  are:    (1)  Production  for 


CLASS  DIVISIONS  35 

sale  and  profit  instead  of  for  use;  (2) 
The  existence  of  a  wage-paying  class 
owning  the  tools  and  other  means  of 
production  used  by  others,  and  a 
wage-receiving  class  using  the  tools 
owned  by  others  in  the  interests  of 
the  tool-owners. 

To  many  people,  especially  Ameri- 
cans, any  reference  to  class  divisions 
IS  exceedingly  disagreeable,  and  acts 
as  a  red  rag  is  supposed  to  act  upon 
the  nerves  of  a  bad  tempered  bull. 
They  are  perfectly  willing  to  admit 
that  classes  existed  in  ancient  times, 
under  the  slave  system  and  the  later 
feudal  system  which  bound  the  serf 
to  the  soil.  They  admit  the  existence 
of  classes  at  the  present  time  in  the 
countries  of  the  old  world  where  more 
or  less  of  the  feudal  traditions  exist, 
but  they  do  not  willingly  admit  the 
existence  of  class  divisions,  similar  in 
all  essential  respects,  in  twentieth  cen- 
tury America. 

This  is  perfectly  natural,  for,  super- 


36  THE  SOCIALISTS 

ficially,  conditions  in  the  United 
States  are  different  from  conditions 
in  Russia,  Germany,  or  even  England. 
We  have  no  hereditary  monarchy;  no 
titled  aristocracy;  no  State  Church. 
The  Constitution,  the  foundation  of 
our  political  system,  guarantees  free- 
dom and  equality  to  all.  Politically, 
the  poorest  man  is  theoretically  equal 
to  the  richest  in  the  land,  and  the 
humblest  child  born  has  equal  chance 
with  every  other  child  of  becoming 
the  head  of  our  government.  It  is  not 
easy  for  men  and  v^omen  reared  in 
such  a  country,  and  educated  to  such 
views  as  these,  to  realize  that  just  as 
^he  class  division  which  existed  under 
the  ancient  slave  systems  existed,  but 
in  a  slightly  changed  form,  under  the 
feudal  regime  in  which  the  serf  de- 
pended upon  the  owner  of  the  soil,  • 
so  it  exists  under  capitalism,  in  the 
relation  of  employer  and  employee. 
For,  as  in  each  of  the  previous  sys- 
tems,   the    means     upon     which    one 


CI-ASS  DIVISIONS  37 

man's  life  depends  is  owned  by  an- 
other who  exacts  service  for  access  to 
those  means. 

But  the  fact  of  class  divisions  in 
America  has  in  recent  years  become 
too  obvious  to  be  seriously  ques- 
tioned. On  the  one  hand  we  see  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  men 
and  women  of  fabulous  wealth,  wTiose 
riotous  luxury  excels  anything  of 
which  history  bears  any  record,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  great  mass  of 
the  wealth  producers,  the  wage  earn- 
ers, forced  to  live  close  to  the  mar- 
gin of  bare  existence.  Against  the 
colossal  and  unimaginable  fortunes  of 
our  multimillionaires  of  the  type  rep- 
resented by  Mr.  Rockefeller  and  Mr. 
Carnegie,  we  have  the  spectacle  of 
the  most  appalling  poverty.  Even  in 
the  heyday  of  our  so-called  prosperity 
we  have  the  bitter  cry  of  "ten  mil* 
lions  in  poverty,''  with  all  that  is  im- 
plied in  that  cry — the  hunger  of 
babes,   the   heavy   burdens   borne   by 


38  THE  SOCIALISTS 

wearied  mothers,  the  grinoimg  of 
child  lives  into  profits,  the  hopeless 
despair  of  unemployed  men,  tbe  tragic 
misery  of  the  aged  and  toilworn  out- 
casts of  industrial  society.  Moreover, 
these  class  divisions  tend  to  become 
hereditarily  fixed  as  firmly  as  the 
hereditary  castes  of  the  old  world  are 
fixed.  By  the  very  magnitude  of  the 
vast  fortunes  which  its  members  must 
bequeath  to  their  sons,  the  ruling 
class  tends  to  become  hereditarily 
fixed.  Likewise  the  vastness  of  these 
fortunes  removes  their  possessors  so 
far  from  the  most  favored  members 
of  the  working  class  as  law  and  cus- 
tom keep  the  monarchs  of  the  old 
world  and  their  subjects  from  each 
other.  The  chances  of  a  worker  en- 
tering the  ruling  class  are  rapidly  be- 
coming just  as  small  and  negligible 
under  our  new  plutocracy  as  in  any 
of  the  European  monarchies. 


CONDITION  OF  THE  WORKERS  39 


VII. 

CONDITION  OF  THE  WORKERS 

Bearing  in  mind  that  the  workers 
are  the  producers  of  all  wealth,  that 
every  vestige  of  our  national  prosper- 
ity and  greatness  is  born  of  their  la- 
bor of  hand  and  brain,  let  us  turn  for 
a  moment  to  the  condition  of  the 
working  class.  According  to  the 
United  States  census  of  1900,  of  the 
16,187,715  families  in  the  United 
States  only  31.8  per  cent,  own  their 
own  homes.  No  less  than  68.2  per 
cent,  of  the  total  number  of  families 
liv>e  in  homes  that  are  either  hired 
by  the  week  or  the  month  or  mort- 
gaged. It  is  safe  and  conservative 
to  say  that  at  least  80  per  cent,  of 
all  the  wage-earners  of  America — and 
at  least  90  per  cent,  of  those  who  live 
in  the  cities — have   no  homes   except 


40  THE  SOCIALISTS 

those  that  are  hired  by  the  week  or 
the  month.  As  they  hire  their  homes 
so  they  themselves  are  hired  by  the 
day  or  by  the  week,  and  are  without 
security  of  employment.  An  employ- 
er's whim,  the  introduction  of  a  new 
industrial  process,  or  an  improved  ma- 
chine, the  success  of  a  rival  firm,  a 
political  change  in  some  foreign  land, 
— causes  as  impersonal  as  these  will 
throw  the  average  wage-worker  into 
the  ranks  of  the  unemployed  without 
an  hour's  warning.  With  wages  bare- 
ly sufficient  to  provide  the  actual  ne- 
cessities of  life,  a  month's  sickness 
suffices  to  reduce  tens  of  thousands; 
of  the  wage-earning  class  to  destitu- 
tion and  pauperism.  A  prolonged 
sickness,  or  an  accident,  brings  even 
the  most  favored  and  prudent  of  the 
workers  to  that  deplorable  condition. 
When,  exhausted  by  excessive  toil 
and  the  fierce  struggle  for  existence, 
they  are  no  longer  able  to  keep  pace 
with  younger,  more  virile  competitors, 


CONDITION  OF  THE  WORKERS  4I 

and  are  cast  aside  as  so  much  indus- 
trial waste,  few  are  the  workers  who 
are  able  to  rest  in  peaceful  security 
upon  the  savings  of  their  working 
years. 

In  Europe  it  has  been  found  that 
90  per  cent,  of  the  working  class 
families  in  which  the  breadwinners 
are  injured  need  charitable  relief,  and 
though,  as  Mr.  Robert  Hunter  sug- 
gests, the  proportion  would  probably 
be  less  in  this  country,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  whatever  that  industrial  ac- 
cidents are  responsible  for  a  tremen- 
dous amount  of  poverty.  There  is  no 
reliable  record  of  the  number  of  such 
accidents  in  the  United  States  year 
by  year,  but  Mr.  Frederick  L.  Hoff- 
man, of  the  Prudential  Insurance 
Company,  has  estimated  that  at  least 
1,664,000  persons  are  annually  killed 
or  more  or  less  seriously  injured  in 
the  United  States.*  That  the  great 
majority  of  these  accidents  occur 
*Cf.  Poverty,  by  Robert  Hunter,  p.  344. 


42  THE  SOCIALISTS 

among  members  of  the  wage-earning 
class,  and  consequently  involve  hard- 
ship and  poverty  to  those  dependent 
on  their  earnings,  is  indisputable. 

So,  too,  w^ith  sickness.  The  condi- 
tions under  which  the  workers  live 
and  toil  are  responsible  for  an  appal- 
ling amount  of  sickness.  The  ill- 
nourished,  ill-clad,  toil-worn  bodies  of 
the  proletariat  succumb  most  readily 
to  the  ravages  of  pneumonia,  the  dis- 
ease which  has  been  aptly  called  "The 
Captain  of  the  Men  of  Death."  Tu- 
berculosis, also,  is  universally  recog- 
nized by  the  medical  profession  to  be 
a  disease  of  the  masses.  Living  in 
crowded,  ill-ventilated  tenements, 
working  in  the  dust-laden  atmosphere 
of  factories  and  mines,  toiling  exces- 
sively and  receiving  insufficient  nour- 
ishment and  rest,  the  wage-working 
class  furnishes  the  Great  White 
Plague  with  a  majority  of  its  victims. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  evils 
from  which  the  workers  suffer.     No 


CONDITION  OF  THE  WORKERS  43 

wonder  that  so  many  of  them  seek 
the  solace  of  forgetfulness  in  strong 
drink,  as  if  responding  to  the  Biblical 
injunction,  "Let  him  drink,  and  for- 
get his  poverty.  And  remember  his 
misery  no  more/'  No  wonder,  either, 
that  in  our  richest  and  greatest  city, 
where  the  money  power  of  the  world 
centers  and  Mammon's  temples  are 
thronged  with  eager  votaries,  one  per- 
son out  of  every  ten  that  die  must  lie 
in  the  grave  of  pauperism  and  failure 
in  Potter's  Field! 


44  THE  SOCIALISTS 


VIII. 

THE  DIVISION  OF  WEALTH 

This  poverty  of  the  workers  is  not 
due  to  their  failure  as  producers. 
There  is  no  such  a  thing  as  a  poverty 
problem  in  the  sense  that  not  enough 
wealth  is  produced  to  supply  all  the 
needs  of  the  nation.  The  existence 
of  a  social  class  of  excessive  wealth, 
the  members  of  which  vie  with  one 
another  in  wanton  display  of  luxury,  is 
a  sufficient  living  proof  of  this.  While 
Mr.  Rockefeller  has  an  income  of 
more  than  sixty  million  dollars  a 
year — ^a  sum  far  greater  than  the  com- 
bined incomes  of  all  the  crowned 
heads  of  Europe  and  the  presidents  of 
the  United  States  and  France — and 
another  man  starves  to  death  because 
he  is  unable  to  buy  food  enough  to 


THE  DIVISION   OF  WEALTH  4$ 

keep  his  body  alive,  it  is  evident  that 
the  problem  must  be  one  of  unequal 
distribution  rather  than  inadequate 
production. 

This  inequality  of  distribution  is  too 
apparent  not  to  be  generally  recog- 
nized. It  is  the  one  unquestioned 
and  unquestionable  fact  of  the  mod- 
ern social  problem.  Some  economists 
hare  tried  to  justify  the  inequality, 
but  none  ever  dreams  of  questioning 
its  existence.  Many  attempts  have 
been  made  to  express  scientifically,  in 
statistical  form,  the  measure  of  this 
inequality,  but  the  subject  is  one 
v^hich  bristles  with  difficulties.  The 
late  Charles  B.  Spahr,  in  his  well- 
known  work,  The  Present  Distribu- 
tion of  Wealth  in  the  United  States^ 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  seven- 
eighths  of  the  families  of  the  United 
States  owned  no  more  than  one- 
eighth  of  the  national  wealth,  and 
that  one  per  cent  of  the  families 
held  more  of  the  national  wealth  than 


46  THE    SOCIALISTS 

the    remaining   ninety-nine   per   cent. 

The  following  diagram  will  make 
the  significance  of  these  figures  ap- 
parent at  a  glance: 

Diagram  Showing  Distribution  o^  W^ai^Th 
IN  U.  S.  (Spahr's  Estimate.) 


Seven-eighths    of    the 

families  in  the  U.S.  own 

only  one-eighth  of 

the  wealth. 

Dr.  Spahr's  work  was  published  in 
1896  and  his  figures  are  therefore 
somewhat  out  of  date.  We  may  be 
quite  sure,  however,  that  the  disparity 
in  the  distribution  of  the  nation's 
wealth  has  not  lessened  since  that 
time.     The  United  States  census  au- 


THE  DIVISION   OF  WEALTH  47 

thorities  do  not  publish  any  calcula- 
tions upon  this  subject  as  they  once 
did,  so  we  must  depend  upon  the  re- 
sults reached  by  independent  statis- 
ticians who  have  taken  the  trouble  to 
make  such  calculations  from  the  mass 
of  crude  data  contained  in  the  census 
reports.  Mr.  Lucien  Sanial,  a  com- 
petent statistical  authority,  has  pub- 
lished some  interesting  calculations  of 
this  nature.  He  divides  society  into 
two  great  economic  classes,  the  Capi- 
talist Class,  consisting  of  "all  the 
persons  who  own  in  some  form  any 
portion  whatever  of  the  natural  and 
mechanical  agencies  required  by  hu- 
man labor  for  the  production  of 
wealth,"  and  the  Proletarian  Class, 
consisting  of  those  who  own  "nothing 
but  their  labor-power." 

The  capitalist  class  Mr.  Sanial  di- 
vides into  two  classes,  "mutually  an- 
tagonistic, yet  equally  determined  to 
maintain  at  all  hazards  the  capitalist 
system" — the  system  of  private  prop- 


48  THE  SOCIALISTS 

erty  in  the  means  of  production,  and 
wage-paid  labor.  So  that,  according 
to  Mr.  SaniaFs  division,  we  have  three 
classes,  made  up  as  follows:  (1)  The 
Plutocracy,  composed  of  wealthy 
bankers,  railway  magnates,  corpora- 
tion directors,  trust  magnates,  and 
the  like;  (2)  The  Middle  Class,  com- 
posed of  farmers,  small  manufactur- 
ers, merchants,  professional  men,  and 
so  on;  (3)  The  Proletariat,  composed 
chiefly  of  wage-workers  and  a  small 
proportion  of  the  professional  class. 

This  division,  il  must  be  confessed^ 
is  open  to  serious  objections,  as,  in- 
deed, all  such  arbitrary  groupings  of 
economic  interests  must  be.  For  ex- 
ample, a  large  and  increasing  num- 
ber of  farmers  and  traders  are  in  sub- 
stantially the  same  position  as  the 
wage-workers,  and  their  political  and 
economic  interests  are  with  these 
rather  than  with  the  capitalists.  The^ 
tenant  farmer  who  receives  in  return 
for  the  labor  of  himself  and  wife,  and, 


THE  DIVISION  OF  WEALTH  49 

often,  the  other  members  of  his  fam- 
ily, less  than  the  wages  of  his  hired 
man,  cannot  well  be  considered  as  be- 
longing to  a  higher  economic  category 
than  the  man  he  employs.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  small  storekeeper.  In 
defense  of  Mr.  Sanial's  classification  it 
may  be  said  that,  as  yet,  these  farm- 
ers and  small  traders  do  not  recognize 
the  identity  of  their  interests  with 
those  of  the  wage-workers,  though 
here  again  it  is  necessary  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  farmers  seem  just  as 
ready  to  ally  themselves  with  the 
political  movement  of  the  working 
class,  the  Socialist  Party,  as  the  wage- 
earners  of  the  cities.  No  one  who 
has  been  privileged  to  compare  the 
Socialist  movement  in  the  great  agri- 
cultural communities  of  the  United 
States  with  that  of  the  industrial  cen- 
ters can  deny  that  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  farmer's  do  regard  themselves 
as  ^eing,  in  all  ess'sntiaU,  proletari- 
ans. 


so  THE  SOCIALISTS 

With  these  reservations  in  mind, 
let  us  return  to  Mr,  Sanial's  figures. 
He  gives  the  number  of  the  Pluto- 
cratic Class  as  250,251,  of  the  Middle 
Class  as  8,429,845,  and  of  the  Prole- 
tariat, or  v^orking  class,  as  20,393,137. 
The  respective  share  of  each  of  these 
classes  in  the  total  wrealth  of  the 
country,  as  compared  with  its  num- 
ber of  occupied  persons,  is  show^n  in 
the  follow^ing  diagram  and  explana- 
tory tabic: 


THE  DIVISION   OF  WEALTH 


SI 


s 


00 

io  ro  (i 

Ca)  vo  o 

-  00  w 

CO  ^  Ul 

sj  01  — 


NJ  10 

O  VO  p 

-  O  VO 


10  0) 
^  ^  vi 


^  10  VI 
^  Ol  o 
10  O)  Ol 


Plutocratic  Class 
S67,000,000,000 

Middle  Class 
$24,000,000,000 

1  i 

52  THE  SOCIALISTS 


IX. 

THE  CONFLICT  OF  CLASS  INTERESTS 

It  is  this  great  inequality  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  wealth  which  gives  rise 
to  and  inspires  the  conflict  of  the 
classes,  the  Class  Struggle  which 
forms  such  an  important  feature  of 
the  philosophy  of  Socialism  and  which 
so  many  earnest  men  and  women  find 
it  difficult,  if  not  altogether  impos- 
sible, to  accept.  No  other  phase  of 
the  philosophy  and  propaganda  of 
Socialism  has  been  so  much  misun- 
derstood, or  so  vehemently  denounced 
and  misrepresented,  as  this  idea  that 
changes  in  the  basic  economic  condi- 
tions of  life  create  distinct  class  di- 
visions in  society,  and  that  the  real 
social  and  political  advances  which 
mark  the  evolution  of  society  are 
made  through  the  urge  and  impulse 


CONFLICT  OF  CLASS  INTERESTS     53 

of  the  resulting  inevitable  struggles 
between  these  classes  for  mastery. 

Now,  while  it  may  be,  and  is-  easily 
explainable,  this  is  greatly  to  be  de- 
plored. It  is  always  regrettable  when 
thoughtful  men  and  women  who  are 
earnestly  seeking  the  truth  are  preju- 
diced against  an  idea  or  a  movement 
through  some  misconception  of  it.  In 
the  belief  that  many  such  persons  are 
today  opposing  Socialism  because  of 
their  total  misconception  of  what  it 
really  means,  this  attempt  is  made  to 
state  plainly,  honestly  and  without 
acrimony  or  offense  what  Socialists 
understand  by  the  class  struggle. 

In  the  first  place,  reverting  for  a 
moment  to  the  unequal  division  of 
wealth  already  shown,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  wealth  producers  who  receive 
such  a  small  share  of  the  products  of 
their  toil  have  a  certain  community 
of  interests  as  against  the  recipients 
of  the  larger  share.  The  individual 
workers  in  a  factory  or  mine  may  be 


54  THE  SOCIALISTS 

divided  by  a  thousand  different  things. 
They  may  be  of  different  races,  they 
may  have  different  religious  beliefs, 
but  they  have  one  thing  in  common 
• — they  have  a  common  interest  in 
securing  as  large  a  return  for  their 
labor,  as  big  a  share  of  their  products, 
as  possible.  There  will  be  a  natural 
tendency,  therefore,  for  them  to  unite 
upon  that  one  question.  It  v^ould  be 
impossible  to  get  them  to  agree  upon 
any  question  involving  the  merits  of 
their  respective  nationalities;  to  at- 
tempt to  unite  them  in  any  religious 
organization  would  be  foredoomed  to 
failure.  But  in  general  they  will 
unite,  more  or  less  readily,  upon  the 
platform  of  their  economic  interests. 
In  like  manner,  those  wHo  receive 
the  larger  share,  so  enormously  dis- 
proportionate to  their  numbers,  may 
al30  differ  upon  all  other  matters,  but 
they  will  tend  to  agree  as  to  the  de- 
sirability of  maintaining  the  present 
division  of  wealth,  of  increasing  their 


CONFLICT  OF  CLASS  INTERESTS     55 

share  if  possible,  and,  at  any  rate, 
preventing  its  being  lessened  by  any 
coercive  action  on  the  part  of  the 
w^orkers.  They,  too,  may  be  of  differ- 
ent races  and  have  different  religious 
beliefs,  and  because  of  these  things 
they  may  belong  to  different  clubs 
and  social  "sets,"  but  they  will  find  a 
basis  for  common  agreement  in  their 
economic  interests. 

In  the  foregoing  proposition  care 
has  been  taken  to  confine  the  state- 
ment to  its  necessary  limitations.  It 
is  claimed  merely  that  there  v^ill  be 
a  tendency  for  this  unity  upon  a  basis 
of  economic  interests  to  occur.  There 
may  be  individuals  so  constituted  that 
they  are  not  able  or  v^illing  to  unite 
with  their  fellows  upon  anything. 
There  may  be  some  who  will  not  be 
able  to  recognize  that  they  have  com- 
mon  interests  with  their  fellows. 
There  may  be  some  who  will  regard 
racial  or  religious  divisions  as  being 
vital  to  the  extent  of  forbidding  any 


56  THE  SOCIALISTS 

association  with  others  of  alien  race 
or  faith.  Finally,  there  may  be  and 
in  fact  are,  some  members  of  the 
superior  economic  class  who  regard 
the  system  which  gives  them  so  dis- 
proportionate a  share  of  the  wealth 
of  the  world  as  wrong  and  unite  with 
the  workers  instead  of  their  natural 
allies.  But  all  these  are  exceptions, 
and  in  general  it  may  be  said  that 
men  will  unite  according  to  their 
economic  interests  while  preserving 
other  natural  divisions,  because  the 
economic  question  is  fundamental.  It 
is  the  bottom  question  of  life — the 
question  of  food  and  clothes  and  shel- 
ter. That  some  rise  superior  to  their 
environment  does  not  invalidate  the 
theory  that  life  is  in  general  condi- 
tioned  by  its  environment. 

All  this  is  very  trite  and  obvious, 
but  it  goes  to  the  roots  of  the  prob- 
lem before  us.  Association  for  mu- 
tual protection  is  a  law  of  nature 
which  men  everywhere,  and  most  of 


CONFLICT  OF  CLASS  INTERESTS     57 

the  lower  animals,  instinctively  obey. 
When  the  individuals  find  themselves 
powerless  to  defend  their  interests 
they  instinctively  unite.  Prince  Kro- 
potkin  in  his  wonderful  book,  Mu- 
tual Aid  a  Factor  of  Evolution,  gives 
many  interesting  examples,  human 
and  other,  of  the  observance  of  this 
law.  The  struggle  of  the  classes, 
then,  is  a  natural  struggle,  the  work- 
ing out  of  a  great  universal  natural 
law.  It  is  imperative  that  this  be 
remembered  by  those  who  would  un- 
derstand Socialism  and  its  propa- 
ganda. Many  people  make  the  seri- 
ous mistake  of  supposing  that  Social- 
ism is  responsible  for  the  class  strug- 
gle, that  the  advocates  of  Socialism, 
by  preaching  bitterness  and  class 
hatred,  make  the  class  struggle.  Be- 
cause they  believe  this  they  oppose 
Socialism  and  denounce  its  advocates 
with  all  their  powers. 

This    is    unfair    to    the    Socialists. 
They  do  not  make  the  struggle  which 


58  THE  SOCIALISTS 

exists  between  the  classes,  but  it  in- 
heres in  the  economic  institutions  of 
society.  Long  before  the  word  So- 
cialism was  ever  spoken  society  was 
torn  by  a  bitter  class  conflict.  In 
fact,  ever  since  in  the  evolution  of 
the  race  private  property  first  became 
recognized,  class  struggles  have  ex- 
isted. Their  history  is  the  history  of 
human  progress.  Ancient  society, 
based  as  it  was  upon  slavery,  was  cer- 
tainly characterized  by  a  definite  class 
division.  Slavery  was  in  fact  the  be- 
ginning of  the  age-long  universal 
class  struggle  between  the  disinherit- 
ed sons  of  earth  and  their  masters. 
The  ancient  histories  teem  with  rec- 
ords of  the  revolts  of  slaves  against 
their  masters.  Likewise  the  history 
of  the  Middle  Ages  tells  mainly  the 
story  of  a  great  and  bitterly-waged 
class  struggle.  No  candid  reader  of  the 
history  of  the  period  can  fail  to  find 
abundant  evidence  of  the  responsibil- 
ity   of   conflicting   class    interests    for 


CONFLICT  OF   CLASS   INTERESTS  59 

the  wars  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
medieval  gilds,  also,  were  the  organ- 
ized expression  of  the  struggle  of  the 
rising  manufacturing  class  against  the 
feudal  barons.  When  Socialists  are 
accused  of  creating  class  division  and 
strife,  the  accusation  is  as  absurd  as  it 
is  unjust.  Upon  the  walls  of  Pompeii 
— which  seems,  says  Mr.  Morrison 
Davidson,  to  have  been  in  the  midst 
of  a  muncipal  election  when  it  was 
buried  in  the  year  79  A.  D. — inscrip- 
tions have  been  found  pointing  to  a 
definite  organization  of  the  working 
class  at  that  time.*  Here  is  one  such 
inscription,  interesting  on  account  of 
the  present  discussion  of  the  desirabil- 
ity of  the  labor  unions  going  into  pol- 
itics : 

"THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  FISHERMEN'S 
UNION  NOMINATE  POPEDIUS  RUFUS 
FOR  MEMBER  OF  THE  BOARD  OF 
WORKS.*' 

*The  Annals  of  Toil,  by  J.  Morrison  Davidson, 
p.  6. 


6o  THE  SOCIALISTS 


X 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  VERSUS  THE  CLASS 

Because  the  class  struggle  is  a 
direct  result  of  those  economic  divi- 
sions which  are  naturally  developed 
in  the  course  of  social  evolution,  it 
follov^s  that  individuals  are  not  re- 
sponsible for  their  part  in  that  strug- 
gle in  any  great  degree.  The  Social- 
ist IS  often  represented  as  a  narrow, 
bitter,  intolerant  fanatic  who  believes 
that  all  capitalists  are  wicked  and  in- 
human, and  that  only  workingmen 
are  good.  What  the  Socialist  really 
does  believe  is  that  the  class  struggle 
is  not  a  question  of  ethics  at  all,  or 
only  indirectly  and  incidentally  so, 
and  that,  generally  speaking,  if  the 
workers  and  the  capitalists  could 
change  places  each  class  would  act  in 
just   the    same   manner   as   the   other 


INDIVIDUAL  VS.   CLASS  6l 

now  does.  When,  therefore,  a  great 
industrial  war  takes  place,  the  Social- 
ist does  not  talk  about  the  "w^icked 
capitalists,"  nor  about  the  **good  work- 
ingmen."  He  simply  sees  in  the  w^ar  a 
natural  result  of  conditions  for  w^hich 
neither  side  is  directly  responsible. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  Social- 
ists are  forever  seeking  to  end  this 
class  conflict,  which  they  deplore  as 
much  as  any  of  their  critics.  Even 
when  to  a  superficial  observer  they 
seem  to  be  doing  their  best  to  in- 
crease the  intensity  of  the  strife  by 
calling  upon  the  workers  to  more  vig- 
orous warfare,  they  are  in  reality  aim- 
ing at  the  ending  of  the  struggle  once 
and  for  all.  At  present  the  struggle 
is  being  waged  upon  the  industrial 
field.  There  are  large,  well  equipped 
organizations  of  employers  and  em- 
ployed constantly  fighting  each  other. 
If  the  workers  in  a  factory  or  mine 
are  dissatisfied  with  their  conditions, 
either  because  their  pay  is  too  little. 


62  THE  SOCIALISTS 

their  hours  of  labor  too  mafay,  or 
their  surroundings  unpleasant  or  un- 
safe, they  realize  that  as  individuals 
they  have  no  power  to  enforce  any 
demands  they  may  make  for  better 
conditions,  and  that  if  they  make  such 
demands  they  are  liable  to  dismissal. 
They  make  their  demands,  therefore, 
collectively,  through  the  unions  which 
they  have  formed  as  a  result  of  their 
recognition  of  this  individual  help- 
lessness. Now,  it  is  not  always  a 
question  of  goodwill  with  employers 
whether  or  not  they  will  grant  the 
demands  of  their  employees.  The 
maintenance  of  their  business  at  what 
they  consider  to  be  a  fair  rate  of 
profit  may  preclude  them  from  pay- 
ing higher  wages,  lessening  the  hours 
of  employment,  or  investing  capital 
in  improvements  of  their  factories.  In 
competitive  industries,  and  especially 
when  wages  figure  as  the  principal 
item  in  the  total  cost  of  production, 
the   individual  employer  who   has   to 


INDIVIDUAL  VS.   CLASS  63 

pay  higher  w^ages  than  his  competi- 
tors is  not  infrequently  ruined.  In 
addition,  there  is  always  the  fact  that 
employers  have  a  natural  class  inter- 
est in  resisting  the  demands  of  the 
w^orkers. 


64  THE  SOCIALISTS 


IX 
PRESENT  METHODS  OF  CLASS  WARFARE 

In  general,  the  methods  of  warfare 
resorted  to  may  be  summed  up  as  fol- 
lows: The  workers  resort  to  the 
strike  or  the  boycott  and  the  employ- 
ers  to  the  lockout  or  the  blacklist — 
the  latter  being  simply  a  boycott  of 
unionism.  Sometimes  when  the  work- 
ers strike  in  one  shop  or  factory  the 
employers  in  that  industry  resort  to  a 
general  lockout.  Sometimes  the  em- 
ployers take  the  initiative  and  meet 
the  demands  of  their  employees,  and 
their  threats  to  strike,  by  instituting 
a  general  lockout  beforehand,  the 
unions  retaliating  by  means  of  a  more 
or  less  ineffective  and  futile  boycott. 
It  is  essentially  a  guerilla  warfare 
that  is  waged. 

A  candid  study  of  the  facts  as  they 


METHODS  OF  WARFARE  65 

are  reported  in  the  press,  and  the  re- 
ports  of  the  various  unions,  as  well  as 
the  facts  which  appear  to  personal 
observation,  forces  the  observer  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  this  warfare 
the  burden  of  suffering  and  discom- 
fort invariably  falls  upon  the  work- 
ers. Whenever  a  prolonged  strike 
occurs,  even  though  they  win,  the 
workers  suffer  hardships  and  priva- 
tions that  are  entirely  disproportion- 
ate to  any  inconvenience  the  employ- 
ers may  feel.  This  is  universally  rec- 
ognized. There  is,  however,  another 
party  that  is  forced  to  suffer,  despite 
the  fact  that  it  has  neither  part  nor 
lot  in  the  quarrel.  The  public  suffers 
inconvenience,  and  often  real  hard- 
ship, as  in  the  case  of  the  great  coal 
strike  of  1902,  even  though  it  may  not 
know  the  issues  of  the  dispute,  as 
sometimes  happens,  or  knows  them 
only  imperfectly. 

Not  only  are  the  workers  at  a  nat- 
ural disadvantage  in  this  guerilla  war- 


66  THE  SOCIALISTS 

fare  against  the  owners  of  the  machin- 
ery of  wealth  production,  but  the  em- 
ployers have  adopted  a  more  scientific 
method  of  fighting  which  cannot  be 
matched  by  strikes  or  boycotts.  They 
have  seized  the  machinery  of  govern- 
ment in  all  its  branches,  legislative, 
executive  and  judicial,  to  fight  the 
workers.  The  executive  and  judicial 
powers  especially  have  been  suborned 
to  these  purposes.  Laws  proposed  in 
the  interests  of  the  workers  are 
fought  in  the  legislative  halls  and  de- 
feated wherever  possible.  When  it  is 
found  to  be  impossible  to  do  this,  and 
laws  favorable  to  labor  are  enacted, 
the  judicial  powers  are  resorted  to  for 
the  purpose  of  defeating  the  inten- 
tions of  the  legislators  by  declaring 
the  laws  unconstitutional.  The  pre- 
vailing rate  of  wages  law  in  New 
York,  in  1901,  the  eight-hour  law  in 
Ohio,  in  1902,  and  the  ten-hour  law  as 
applied  to  bakeshops  in  New  York,  in 
1905,   are   notable   instances   of  what 


METHODS  OF  WARFARE  67 

generally  happens.  It  is  nowadays 
regarded  as  being  fairly  certain  that 
any  law  which  may  be  passed  favor- 
able to  the  workers  in  their  struggle 
will   be   declared   unconstitutional. 

Even  more  effective  has  been  the 
use  of  the  judicial  injunction.  The 
sinister  phrase,  "Government  by  In- 
junction," mocks  the  fine  rhetorical 
phrases  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. When  the  judiciary  of  any 
country  can  forbid  citizens  to  do  what 
they  have  a  perfect  legal  right  to  do, 
or  to  compel  men  to  do  what  they 
have  a  perfect  legal  right  to  refrain 
from  doing,  Liberty  is  outraged  and 
Justice  is  violated  in  the  temple. 
Says  Mr.  John  Mitchell:  "No  weapon 
has  been  used  with  such  disastrous  ef- 
fect against  trade  unions  as  the  in- 
junction in  labor  disputes.  By  means 
of  it  trade  unionists  have  been  prohi- 
bited under  severe  penalties  from  do- 
ing what  they  had  a  legal  right  to  do, 
and  have  been  specifically  directed  to 


68  THE  SOCIALISTS 

do  what  they  had  a  legal  right  not  to 
do.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  In  measur- 
ed language  of  the  savagery  and 
venom  with  which  unions  have  been 
assailed  by  the  injunction,  and  to  the 
working  classes,  as  to  all  fair-minded 
men,  it  seems  little  less  than  a  crime 
to  condone  or  tolerate  it.'*'*' 

What  could  be  more  revolting  to 
the  American  sense  of  justice  and 
fairplay  than  the  enjoining  of  men 
engaged  in  a  great  struggle  involving 
a  third  party,  in  this  case  the  public, 
powerful  to  help  or  hinder  their  cause, 
from  publishing  their  side  of  the  con- 
troversy and  appealing  for  the  sup- 
port of  that  powerful  party?  Yet 
this  has  been  done  time  and  again 
without  effective  protest. 

Finally,  the  organizations  of  th^ 
workers,  the  labor  unions,  have  been 
attacked  in  a  vital  part — their  treasur- 
ies. When  the  members  of  a  British 
trade  union,  the  Amalgamated  Society 

♦Organized  Labor,  by  John  Mitchell,  p.  324. 


METHODS  OF  WARFARE  69 

of  Railway  Servants,  were  compelled 
by  the  courts  to  pay  to  the  Tafif  Vale 
Railway  Company,  against  which 
members  of  the  society  had  waged  a 
strike  in  the  usual  regular  manner, 
$115,000  to  compensate  the  company 
for  losses  sustained  through  the 
strike,  it  was  not  long  before  similar 
actions  were  begun  in  various  parts 
of  this  country.  The  members  of  the 
local  lodge  of  the  Machinists'  union 
in  Rutland,  Vermont,  were  ordered 
to  pay  $2,500  to  an  employer  against 
whom  they  had  conducted  a  strike, 
upon  precisely  the  same  gounds  as 
the  English  union  had  to  pay.  Since 
then  there  have  been  many  similar 
decisions  given  in  the  courts  in  var- 
ious parts  of  the  country.  Under 
these  conditions  it  is  practically  im- 
possible for  a  union  either  to  strike 
with  any  advantage  to  its  members 
or  to  possess  any  funds.  It  is,  mani- 
festly, of  little  use  for  workers  to 
strike  if  they  are  to  be  compelled  to 


70  THE  SOCIALISTS 

pay  those  against  whom  they  strike 
for  any  damages  they  may  inflict  upon 
them  by  striking. 

When  to  the  foregoing  conditions 
is  added  the  use  of  the  police  pow- 
ers— policemen  and  state  and  federal 
troops — against  them  in  almost  every 
industrial  dispute,  regardless  of  the 
merits  of  the  struggle,  the  forces  ar- 
rayed against  the  workers,  the  odds 
against  which  they  are  fighting,  seem 
insurmountable.  Disadvantaged  econ- 
omically at  the  very  start,  they  have 
to  contend  against  the  gigantic  poli- 
tical odds  consequent  upon  the  con- 
trol of  the  agencies  of  government 
being  in  the  hands  of  their  enemies. 


TO  END  CLASS  WARFARE  ^\ 


XII. 

TO  END  CLASS  WARFARE 

To  end  this  class  warfare  is  the 
conscious  aim  of  the  SociaHst  move- 
ment. Socialists  are  not  aiming,  as 
many  people  suppose,  to  overthrow 
the  rule  of  the  master  class  merely 
to  set  up  the  rule  of  another  class  in 
its  place.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
changing  the  position  of  the  classes, 
but  of  destroying  class  rule  once  and 
for  all.  That  is  the  ultimate  aim,  the 
goal,  of  the  Socialist  movement  of  the 
world.  Socialists  believe  that  the  pre- 
sent guerilla  warfare,  which  injures 
most  of  all  the  workers  and  their 
families,  should  give  place  to  other 
and  saner  methods.  They  believe 
that  we  should  aim  at  the  permanent 
solution  of  the  issue  upon  which  the 


72  THE  SOCIALISTS 

classes  divide  in  the  only  way  that  is 
possible,  namely,  the  removal  of  the 
fundamental  cause  of  the  division  and 
struggle.  That,  as  v^e  have  seen,  is 
the  system  of  private  ov^nership  in 
the  means  of  production  and  exchange 
and  their  use  for  profit.  This  sys- 
tem of  capitalism  has  played  its  part 
— an  important  part — in  the  develop- 
ment of  society.  Now  it  is  no  longer 
necessary  nor  adapted  to  the  needs 
of  social  development.  Moreover,  it 
is  plainly  and  rapidly  disintegrating, 
and  it  is,  Socialists  believe,  possible 
to  end  it  without  bringing  upon 
society  any  of  the  lamentable  evils 
which  follow  upon  attempts  to  abro- 
gate, or  interfere  with,  the  great  uni- 
versal laws  of  evolution. 

The  Socialist,  then,  advocates  the 
organization  of  the  workers  political- 
ly for  this  purpose.  The  organiza- 
tion may  be,  and,  most  Socialists 
think,  should  be,  economic  as  well 
as  political.     But  the  political  organ- 


TO  END  CLASS   WARFARE  73 

izaMon  is  imperative.  The  strike  and 
boycott  need  not  be  repudiated  as 
weapons.  They  may  be  used  in  con- 
junction with  the  political  weapon. 
They  may  still  be  mainly  depended 
on  for  the  immediate  economic  strug- 
gle, or  they  may  be  used  to  supple- 
ment the  political  attack.  We  may 
yet  have  mass  strikes  of  the  workers 
engaged  in  the  staple  industries  for 
political  purposes.  Nor  must  the  mis- 
take be  made  of  supposing  that  this 
Socialist  view  of  the  position  of  the 
workers  in  the  great  class  struggle 
affords  no  immediate  hope  to  them, 
promising  nothing  now  but  everything 
ultimately  through  the  solution  of  the 
whole  problem  of  economic  inequality 
and  class  divisions.  Such  political 
organization  as  the  Socialists  advo- 
cate must  inevitably  bring  great  im- 
mediate advantages  to  the  workers. 
It  is  easy  to  see,  for  instance,  that 
the  control  of  the  legislature  would 
make   it   possible   for   them    to   enact 


74  THE  SOCIALISTS 

legislation  for  their  immediate  advan- 
tage. Even  a  partial  control,  the  pos- 
session of  a  strong  minority  part)"  in 
the  legislature,  v^ould  enable  theni  to 
demand  effectively  important  conces- 
sions as  w^ell  as  to  prevent  many  of 
the  outrageous  abuses  to  w^hich  they 
are  at  present  subjected.  If  they  de- 
stroyed the  capitalist  control  of  the 
judiciary  they  w^ould  be  able  to  safe- 
guard their  organizations  against  in- 
junctions, damage  suits,  and  other  in- 
sidious forms  of  capitalist  aggression 
which  are  now  rendering  them  impo- 
tent. 

There  can  be  no  qtjestion  as  to  the 
political  power  of  the  working  class 
whenever  its  members  choose  to  ex- 
ert it.  Their  votes  far  outnumber 
the  combined  votes  of  the  great  so- 
called  middle  class  and  the  small  plu- 
tocratic class.  If  these  class  lines 
were  closely  drawn  in  politics,  the 
workers  uniting  against  the  plutocrats 
and    the    middle    class,    their   relative 


TO  END  CLASS   WARFARE  75 

strength  would  be  about  as  shown  in 
the  following  diagram : 


Diagram  Showing  RKiyATivE  Voting 
Strength  of  the;  Ci^assks 

(The  long  black  portion  represents  the  vote  of 
the  Workers.) 

Now  that  we  have  seen  what  the 
Socialist  theory  of  the  class  struggle 
really  means,  let  us  see  what  position 
its  opponents  mu^t  take  if  they  are  to 
refute  it.  They  may  contend:  (1) 
That  there  is  no  class  struggle  in 
modern  society;  or  (2)  that  the  class 
struggle  which  exists  is  not  the  result 
of  natural  economic  causes,  but  that 
individuals  are  responsible  for  it;  (3) 
that  the  continuance  of  the  present 
guerilla  warfare  of  the  classes  is  de- 
sirable, and  that  the  Socialists  are 
wrong  in  trying  to   end  it;    (4)    that 


y6  THE  SOCIALISTS 

the  Socialist  contention  that  the  end 
of  the  class  struggle  is  dependent  on 
the  end  of  the  capitalist  system  is 
wrong.  If  any  one  of  these  four  con- 
tentions could  be  established  the 
Socialists  would  be  compelled  to 
change  their  position  upon  this  funda- 
mental question.  Up  to  the  [^resent, 
however,  no  serious  attempt  has  been 
made  to  maintain  any  of  these  posi- 
tions, those  who  have  entered  upon 
that  field  contributing  unwittingly 
either  to  the  propaganda  of  Socialism 
or  to  the  amusement  of  mankind. 


SOCIAL  VS.   PRIVATE  PROPERTY  '^]^ 


XIII. 

SOCIAL  VERSUS  PRIVATE  PROPERTY 

Socialism  is  frequently  defined  as 
*'the  social  ownership  and  control  of 
the  means  of  production,  distribution 
and  exchange."  The  brief  descrip- 
tions of  the  meanings  of  words  which 
we  call  definitions  are  proverbially 
misleading,  and  this  definition  is  no 
exception  to  the  rule.  As  we  have 
seen,  Socialism  is  much  more  than  a 
movement  aiming  at  the  socialization 
of  the  means  of  production,  distribu- 
tion and  exchange.  It  is  a  philsophy 
of  history,  a  theory  of  social  dynamics. 
In  so  far,  however,  as  this  definition 
is  a  rough-and-ready  attempt  to  de- 
scribe the  general  economic  aim  of  the 
Socialist  movement  and  the  Socialist 
conception  of  the  economic  structure 
of  what  they  believe  will  be  the  next 


78  THE  SOCIALISTS 

stage  in  the  evolution  of  society,  it 
may  be  accepted,  provided  only  that 
we  understand  the  loose  sense  in 
v^hich  the  words  "the  means  of  pro- 
duction, distribution  and  exchange," 
are  used.  In  certain  cases  jack- 
knives  and  spades  are  "means  of  pro- 
duction" and  wheelbarrows  and  mar- 
ket-baskets are  "means  of  distribu- 
tion," but  Socialists  do  not  contem- 
plate the  socialization  of  spades  and 
wheel-barrows.  If  they  obtained  com- 
plete control  of  the  government  in 
any  state,  or  in  the  nation,  it  is  ridi- 
culous to  suppose  that  they  would 
want  to  institute  the  public  ownership 
and  control  of  jack-knives  and  mar- 
ket-baskets. To  avoid  captious  criti- 
cism, therefore,  it  is  admitted  that 
Socialism  does  not  involve  the  owner- 
ship of  all  means  of  production,  dis- 
tribution and  exchange. 

If  it  were  not  that  the  qualifymg 
word  would  cause  confusion  to  read- 
ers and  hearers  rather  than  prove  en- 


SOCIAL  VS.  PRIVATE  PROPERTY  79 

lightening  and  helpful,  since  it  would 
convey  no  exact  meaning  to  their 
minds,  it  would  be  better  to  say  that 
Socialism  involves  the  social  owner- 
ship and  control  of  the  principal 
means  of  production,  distribution  and 
exchange.  Many  critics  first  set  up 
a  straw  man  which  they  call  "Social- 
ism" and  then  spend  their  time  in 
gravely  knocking  it  down.  First  they 
define  Socialism  as  the  destruction  of 
all  private  property,  and  then  proceed 
to  attack  the  huge  bureaucracy  of 
their  own  creation.  They  point  to 
the  existence  of  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  small  farms  and  petty  indus- 
tries and  demand  to  know  if  the  State 
is  going  to  confiscate  these  and  man- 
age them  itself.  Of  course,  the  Social- 
ists contemplate  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  the  State 
will  ever  attempt  to  take  away  the 
artist's  brushes,  the  small  farmer's 
farm,  or  the  tailor's  needle  and  shears. 
These  are  all  means  of  production,  it 


8o  THE  SOCIALISTS 

is  true,  but  so  are  the  housewife's 
sewing-machine,  frying-pan,  and  a 
hundred  other  articles  of  daily  use, 
the  socialization  of  which  would  be 
impossible,  and  too  absurd  for  any- 
thing but  opera  honffe  if  it  were  pos- 
sible. Tools  and  other  necessities  of 
production  which  are  used  by  indivi- 
dual owners  will,  it  is  certain,  never 
be  taken  away  by  the  State.  Only 
tools  that  are  so  complex  as  to  re- 
quire associated  use,  industries  in 
which  there  is  division  of  labor,  and 
ownership  of  the  necessary  agencies 
of  production  by  others  than  the  pro- 
ducers, will  ever  be  socialized.  The 
only  conceivable  exceptions  to  this 
would  be  cases  in  which  the  safety 
and  well-being  of  the  community  ne- 
cessitated such  a  strict  supervision  of 
some  individual's  product  as  would 
only  be  possible  under  the  state  own- 
ership of  the  necessary  agents  for  its 
production.  The  possibility  of  any 
product  of   individual   labor  being  so 


SOCIAL  VS.  PRIVATE  PROPERTY  8l 

vital  to  the  life  of  the  community  and 
fulfilling  these  conditions  is  exceed- 
ingly remote. 

Clothes,  for  example,  are  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  inhabitant  of  these 
latitudes,  though 

"Down  in  Dahomey's  sunny  land, 
'Mid  social  functions  on  the  sand, 
A  negro  maid  without  a  skirt 
May  thrive  as  bride,  or  belle,  or  flirt." 

Clothes,  then,  are  necessities  of  life. 
In  a  large  sense  they  are  socially  nec- 
essary, but  they  are  peculiarly  per- 
sonal in  their  use,  and  properly  the 
subject  of  private  property.  Social 
ov^nership  of  men's  pants  and  ladies' 
shirt-waists  is  out  of  the  question. 
Personal  tastes,  hygienic  considera- 
tions, and  the  fact  that  they  can  be 
manufactured  in  any  desired  quantity, 
make  the  socialization  of  clothes  an 
absurdity.  Roads  are  quite  as  neces- 
sary to  civilized  .  man,  socially  and 
individually,  as  clothes.  We  must 
have   roads   of   some   sort,   and   good 


82  THE  SOCIALISTS 

roads  are  desirable  just  as  good 
clothes  are  desirable.  But  roads  can- 
not be  multiplied  indefinitely.  Land 
is  too  valuable  and  too  limited  to  al- 
low every  citizen  to  make  his  own 
roads.  Besides  that,  it  would  be  physi- 
cally impossible  to  have  every  citizen 
make  and  own  private  roads  to  every 
place  he  desired  to  visit.  The  idea  of 
nobody  owning  his  own  clothes  and 
the  idea  of  everybody  owning  his 
own  roads  are  equally  fantastic.  Just 
as  a  hat  or  a  pocket  handkerchief  is  a 
good  illustration  of  private  property, 
being  something  which  the  owner  can 
use  personally,  and  without  injury  or 
inconvenience  to  others,  so  the  public 
street  is  a  good  illustration  of  social 
ownership  and  control — of  active 
Socialism.  Roads  are  a  common 
necessity,  must  be  used  in  common, 
and  are,  therefore,  made,  maintained 
and  owned  in  common.  The  hum- 
blest and  poorest  child  has  just  as 
much   right   to   use   the   streets   of   a 


SOCIAL  VS.  PRIVATE  PROPERTY  83 

city,  and  just  as  big  a  share  in  them, 
as  the  wealthiest  millionaire. 

So  much  for  the  principles  w^hich 
distinguish  private  and  social  prop- 
erty. Now^  let  us  turn  to  the  produc- 
tion of  things.  Shoes  are  today  com- 
monly made  in  great  factories  which 
turn  out  thousands — and  in  some 
cases  millions — of  pairs  every  year. 
The  workers  in  these  factories  do  not 
make  all  these  shoes  for  themselves; 
they  do  not  make  them  for  the  use  of 
the  owners  of  the  factories.  The 
shoes  are  made  to  supply  the  common 
demand  for  shoes  from  those  who 
while  they  must  wear  shoes  cannot 
make  them  for  themselves.  What 
interest,  then,  have  the  owners  of  the 
shoe  factories  in  the  manufacture  of 
so  many  shoes?  Simply  the  desire  to 
make  profit  out  of  the  social  need. 
They  employ  so  many  workers  to 
make  shoes  and  pay  them  wages. 
Then  they  sell  the  shoes  to  whoever 
wishes  to  buy  them  at  a  price  greatly 


84  THE  SOCIALISTS 

in  excess  of  the  cost  of  the  materials 
used  and  the  wages  paid  to  the  work- 
ers who  made  them.  Neither  the 
makers  of  shoes  nor  the  buyers  of 
shoes  have  any  interest  in  maintain- 
ing the  system  which  exploits  their 
labor  and  their  needs  for  others'"  pro- 
fit. They  might  unite,  therefore,  and 
bring  about  the  socialization  of  the 
shoe-making  industry.  But  if  there 
should  be  some  fastidious  person  who 
did  not  care  to  wear  factory-made 
shoes,  and  some  shoemaker  of  the 
old  school  who  preferred  to  make 
shoes  by  hand  in  the  old-fashioned 
way,  there  could  be  no  possible  ob- 
jection. The  State  would  have  no  in- 
terest in  taking  away  his  tools. 

Such  instances  of  private  production 
will  probably  always  exist,  but  in  gen- 
eral private  production  will  not  be 
able  to  withstand  the  competition  of 
the  machinery  and  subdivision  of 
labor  of  factory  production.  On  the 
one   hand,   the  consumer  will  not  be 


SOCIAL    VS.     PRIVATE    PROPERTY  85 

willing  to  pay  the  cost  of  the  slower, 
old-fashioned  methods,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  shoemaker  will  not  be 
willing  either  to  earn  less  or  to  work 
much  harder  and  longer  than  his  fel- 
lows employed  in  the  socialized  fac- 
tories. Socialism  does  not  involve 
the  absorption  of  countless  small 
farms  and  industries  by  the  State. 
It  involves  the  social  ownership  and 
control  of  only  such  property  as  is 
socially  necessary,  and  of  such  agen- 
cies of  production,  distribution  and 
exchange  as  are  socially  operated  but 
exploited  for  private  gain. 


86  THE  SOCIALISTS 


XIV. 

THE   RELATIONSHIP    OF    PUBLIC    OWNER. 
SHIP  TO  SOCIALISM 

We  come  now  to  a  most  interesting 
question,  one  that  is  already  of  con- 
siderable importance  and  will  become 
more  and  more  important  as  the 
Socialist  movement  in  this  country- 
grows.  With  an  increasing  body  of 
public  ownership  in  our  states  and 
cities,  brought  about  by  non-Social- 
ists, the  question  of  its  relation  to 
Socialism  naturally  arises.  At  first 
thought  it  would  seem  that  there 
could  be  no  possible  difference  of 
opinion  upon  such  a  matter.  If  the 
Socialist  state  is  to  be  based  upon  the 
collective  ownership  of  all  the  princi- 
pal means  of  production,  distribution 
and  exchange,  must  not  the  ownership 
of  anything  that  is  either  a  means  of 


PUBLIC   OWNERSHIP  87 

production,  of  distribution,  or  of  ex- 
change be  regarded  as  an  unquestion- 
ed step  toward  that  end,  an  install- 
ment of  the  Socialist  programme? 

That  the  non-Socialist  advocates  of 
public  ownership  should  indignantly 
deny  that  proposals  to  make  railroads, 
mines,  telegraphs,  banking,  express 
service,  and  so  on,  state  or  national 
institutions  are  directly  Socialistic  is 
perfectly  natural.  They  may  not 
themselves  be  able  to  accept  the  full 
Socialist  programme  while  believing 
entirely  in  the  wisdom  of  socializing 
certain  things;  they  may  enter  their 
denials  to  the  charge  of  heading  to- 
wards Socialism  in  the  interest  of  the 
specific  measures  they  advocate,  know-  j 
ing  that  a  good  deal  of  prejudice 
against  Socialism  exists.  Their  posi- 
tion is  at  least  perfectly  intelligible. 
The  real  difficulty  arises  when  the 
Socialists  themselves,  instead  of  wel- 
coming with  the  enthusiasm  which 
might  be  expected  every  extension  of 


88  THE  SOCIALISTS 

the  principle  of  public  ownership,  and 
co-operating  with  every  movement  for 
the  extension  of  the  principle,  as  a 
step  toward  Socialism,  oppose  it  ac- 
tively or  keep  aloof  from  it  and  treat 
it  with   indifiference. 

Now  it  is  very  easy  to  impute  nar- 
row, selfish  motives  to  the  Socialists 
and  the  charge  is  being  constantly 
made  that  only  political  jealousy,  or 
bigotry,  or  intolerance,  leads  them  to 
adopt  this  attitude.  The  slightest  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Socialist  move- 
ment, however,  should  be  sufficient  to 
discredit  such  an  impeachment  of  its 
integrity  and  sincerity.  It  is  simply 
unthinkable  that  a  great  movement 
which  has  been  built  up  by  such 
tremendous  self-sacrifices  as  fill  the 
pages  of  Socialist  history  should  place 
the  great  principles  and  ideals  which 
inspired  those  sacrifices  beneath  party 
or  personal  consideration.  The  un- 
questionable sincerity  of  the  Socialists, 
and    the    intellectual    attainments    of 


PUBLIC   OWNERSHIP  89 

their  leading  exponents,  may  be  taken 
as  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  there  are 
serious  and  important  reasons,  well 
worthy  of  careful  and  earnest  consid- 
eration, for  their  attitude  toward  all 
non-Socialist  movements  aiming  at 
public  ownership  of  various  public 
utilities.  The  subject  is  too  complicat- 
ed and  too  vast  to  be  adequately  dealt 
with  in  these  pages,  and  what  follows 
is  merely  a  summary  of  some  of  the 
main  reasons  for  the  opposition  of 
the  Socialists  to  what  seems  to  all 
other  persons  to  be  an  advance  in  their 
direction. 

There  are  certain  fundamental  prin- 
ciples by  which  the  Socialist  State 
must  of  necessity  be  characterized. 
(1)  It  must  be  politically  democratic, 
all  its  citizens  having  equal  political 
powers,  without  regard  to  sex,  color, 
race,  or  creed;  (2)  all  those  things 
upon  which  the  life  of  the  people  de- 
pends must  be  socially  owned  and 
used  for  the  common  good,  instead  of 


90  THE  SOCIALISTS 

for  the  profit  of  a  class.  It  is  quite 
evident,  therefore,  that  Socialists  must 
of  necessity  favor  the  extension  of  the 
suffrage  until  the  requirements  of  po- 
litical democracy  have  been  fulfilled. 
In  countries  v^here  the  right  to  vote  is 
a  class  privilege,  denied  to  the  work- 
ers, they  may  very  properly  concen- 
trate all  their  energies  upon  the  task 
of  securing  popular  enfranchisement. 
In  so  concentrating  their  energies 
upon  a  political  issue,  and  subordinat- 
ing to  it  all  other  issues,  they  do  not 
violate  any  of  the  logical  or  traditional 
principles  of  Socialist  policy.  On  the 
other  hand,  though  the  political  sys- 
tem might  fall  far  short  of  their  demo- 
cratic ideal,  say  by  the  exclusion  of 
women,  for  instance,  the  Socialists 
could  with  perfect  consistency  refuse 
to  concentrate  their  activities  upon 
that  one  issue.  While  heartily  in 
favor  of  it,  they  might  reasonably  re- 
fuse to  give  special  predominance  to 
the   enfranchisement  of  women,   and 


PUBLIC  OWNERSHIP  QI, 

even  condemn  any  attempt  to  do  so 
under  certain  circumstances.  Still,  in 
general,  they  would  support  any  pro- 
posal which  might  be  made  to  extend 
the  franchise  to  women,  even  though 
the  proposal  emanated  from  other 
than  Socialist  sources.  If,  however,  it 
should  be  proposed  to  give  political 
power  to  some  women  instead  of  to  all 
women,  say  upon  a  basis  of  property 
or  tax-paying  qualification,  the  Social- 
ists would  vigorously  oppose  it. 
While  it  might  be  argued  that  the  en- 
franchisement of  some  women  would 
be  a  step  toward  the  enfranchisement 
of  all  women,  they  could  not  let  that 
consideration  outweigh  the  fact  that 
the  proposal  involved  the  extension  of 
the  anti-democratic  principle  of  class 
privilege. 

The  same  general  arguments  apply 
to  the  collective  ownership  of  means 
of  production,  distribution  or  ex- 
change. If  some  astute  American 
statesman    should    successfully   adopt 


92  THE  SOCIALISTS 

Bismarck's  famous  policy,  and  intro- 
duce government  ownership  of  rail- 
ways and  so-called  State  Socialism, 
for  purposes  similar  to  those  of  Bis- 
marck— the  strengthening  of  militar- 
ism and  the  undermining  of  the  Social- 
ist movement — the  Socialists  could 
hardly  be  expected  to  support  the 
policy,  no  matter  how  many  people 
might  be  deceived  by  superficial  like- 
nesses, and  the  use  of  phrases  and  ar- 
guments speciously  like  those  of  the 
Socialist  propaganda.  Nothing  in  his- 
tory is  more  common  than  the  emas- 
culation of  great  principles,  either  de- 
liberately by  cunning  foes,  or  uncon- 
sciously by  unwise  friends. 

Just    as    with    Wordsworth's    Peter 
Bell— 

"A  primrose  on  the  river's  brim, 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him" 

and  nothing  more  than  that,  so,  to  a 
great  many  persons,  Socialism  is  pub- 
lic ownership  and  nothing  more.  Yet, 
it    must    be    perfectly    obvious,    one 


PUBLIC  OWNERSHIP  93 

would  think,  that  Russia  with  her 
state  railways  and  state  monopoly  of 
the  liquor  traffic  is  at  least  no  nearer 
being  Socialistic  than  the  United 
States.  The  same  applies  to  Germany 
with  her  state  railways,  insurance, 
banking,  and  other  institutions  public- 
ly owned  instead  of  privately  as  in  the 
United  States.  Externally  similar, 
these  examples  of  public  ownership 
differ  radically  from  the  socialization 
advocated  by  Socialists.  They  bear 
the  same  relation  to  Socialism  that  a 
poor  copy  of  a  great  painting  bears 
to  the  original. 


94  THE  SOCIALISTS 


XV. 

THE  MISSING  SPIRIT 

What  is  it  that  is  lacking  in  the 
public  ownership  with  which  we  are 
familiar  that  it  falls  short  of  the 
Socialist  aim  ?  It  is  a  spiritual  quality, 
not  a  mechanical  one.  We  must  hark 
back  for  answer  to  the  class  motive. 
Socialism  is  essentially  a  movement 
of  the  working  class  and  the  interest 
of  that  class  is  its  vital  principle.  That 
principle  is  almost  entirely  absent 
from  the  public  ownership  which  ex- 
ists within  the  capitalist  state,  or  is 
proposed  by  defenders  of  the  capitalist 
state.  In  the  Bible  story  of  the  crea- 
tion of  man,  God  first  made  a  form 
out  of  red  earth,  but  it  was  not  until 
He  breathed  into  its  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life  that  the  Thing  became  a 
living    soul.      The    public    ownership 


THE  MISSING  SPIRIT  95 

evolved  within  the  capitahst  state  is 
just  a  soulless  form,  it  has  not  receiv- 
ed the  breath  of  life  of  Socialism,  the 
spirit  of  the  interest  and  inspiration  of 
the  working  class. 

Of  late  there  has  been  much  agita- 
tion upon  the  question  of  the  muni- 
cipal ownership  of  various  public  ser- 
vices. New  political  parties  have 
arisen  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
or  old  parties  in  new  guise,  with  pro- 
grammes of  municipal  ownership,  and 
it  is  safe  to  predict  that  there  will  be 
a  widespread  movement  for  municipal 
ownership  in  the  near  future.  The 
Socialists  are  called  upon  to  unite 
with  the  advocates  of  municipal  own- 
ership, in  order  that  Socialism  may- 
be reached  a  "step  at  a  time."  That 
they  will  refuse  to  do  this  is  certain, 
and  they  are  in  duty  bound  to  make 
plain  the   reasons   for  that   refusal. 

Socialists  have  always  stood  for 
municipal  ownership.  When  those 
who  now  cry  out  for  it  were  as  vigor- 


96  THE  SOCIALISTS 

ously  denouncing  it,  the  Socialists 
were  advocating  and  working  for  the 
municipalization  of  all  public  services. 
But  they  want  municipal  ownership  in 
the  interest  of  the  working  class.  If 
it  is  proposed  for  the  benefit  of  the 
capitalist  class,  either  by  giving  them 
a  still  tighter  clutch  upon  the  throats 
of  the  workers  through  interest-bear- 
ing bonds,  or  through  the  reduction 
of  their  taxes,  the  Socialists  feel  that 
it  should  be  resisted.  The  workers 
can  best  serve  their  class  interests  by 
voting  for  Socialism,  which  involves 
municipal  ownership,  since  the  Social- 
ist proposal  is  to  use  the  foiunicipal 
ownership  they  advocate  as  a  means 
of  improving  the  conditions  of  life  for 
the  wealth  producers,  and,  finally,  as  a 
step  toward  the  complete  overthrow 
of  capitalism  and  the  establishment  of 
an  Industrial  Commonweakh.  If 
they  who  so  loudly  cry  out  for '  munici- 
pal ownership  want  it  in  the  interests 
of  the  workers,  the  despoiled  ai*^  dis- 


THE  MISSING  SPIRIT  97 

inherited  victims  of  capitalist  exploita- 
tion, they  will  work  with  the  Socialist 
Party  toward  that  end — they  do  not 
need  new  parties.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
they  want  it  not  in  the  interests  of 
the  workers  but  of  the  master-class, 
that  is  a  full  and  sufficient  reason  why 
the  workers  should  not  support  them. 
That,  in  a  nutshell,  is  the  Socialist  ar- 
gument. 

Municipal  ownership  is  not  a  new 
thing  in  history.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
the  cities  frequently  carried  on  manu- 
facture and  commerce  upon  an  exten- 
sive scale.  Further  back  than  that, 
more  than  two  thousand  years  ago, 
Athens,  in  the  time  of  Clisthenes, 
adopted  the  principle  of  municipal 
ownership  and  carried  it  a  great  deal 
further  than  our  present  day  Reform- 
ers propose  to  carry  it.  Let  us  try 
for  a  moment  in  imagination  to  recon- 
struct the  Athens  of  that  period. 

As  the  picture  of  the  ancient  city- 
state  appears  we  get  a  vivid  impres- 


98  THE  SOCIALISTS 

sion  of  its  vast  and  far-reaching  mu- 
nicipal genius.  The  citizens  live  in 
houses  built  and  maintained  by  the 
city,  their  cattle  is  pastured  outside 
the  city  upon  the  city's  pastures. 
Much  of  the  food  they  buy  is  produc- 
ed on  the  city's  farms,  and  the  city 
saves  them  from  extortionate  de- 
mands by  private  traders  by  fixing  the 
prices  of  all  other  foodstuffs.  The 
money  they  use  is  minted  in  the  mu- 
nicipal mint  and  bears  the  city's  im- 
print. The  fuel  they  burn  is  supplied 
by  the  city.  They  enjoy  municipal 
baths,  parks,  gymnasia,  art  galleries, 
concert  halls  and  theaters;  they  can 
even  worship  in  the  municipal 
churches.  The  city  owns  its  own 
markets,  wharves,  ships  and  ware- 
houses, and  operates  its  own  mines. 
Its  tremendous  revenues  from  these 
sources  enables  the  city  to  assist  its 
citizens  in  times  of  scarcity  and  high 
prices,  to  retail  food  at  less  than  cost^ 
and  to  give  freely  to  those  unable  to 


THE  MISSING  SPIRIT  99 

pay.  Even  so,  its  treasury  overflows 
at  times  and  the  city  government  has 
to  order  a  division  of  the  surplus 
equally  among  the  citizens. 

From  the  SociaHst  viewpoint  this  is 
an  alluring  picture,  but  it  has  another 
side.  The  wonderful  and  comprehen- 
sive system  of  municipal  ownership 
which  Athens  enjoyed  was  not  Social- 
ism any  more  than  the  municipal  own- 
ership advocated  by  our  present  day 
Reformers  would  be.  It  was  all  in 
the  interests  of  a  ruling  class.  All  the 
benefits  were  enjoyed  by  the  citizens, 
or  freemen,  of  whom  there  were  lit- 
tle more  than  twenty  thousand,  as 
against  two  hundred  thousand  slaves 
who  were  exploited  for  their  benefit 
and  enjoyment.  The  Socialist  sees  in 
this  a  significant  lesson  for  the  wage- 
workers  of  today.  Athens  had  munic- 
ipal ownership,  but  all  the  benefits 
were  wrung  from  its  slave  class  and 
enjoyed  by  its  master  class.  And  that 
is   precisely  what   would   result   from 


IICX>  THE  SOCIALISTS 

the  system  of  municipal  ownership 
proposed  today  by  those  who  do  not 
aim  at  the  liberation  of  labor  from 
the  thralldom  of  the  capitalist  sys- 
tem. The  proposal  to  municipalize  any 
public  service  unless  for  the  benefit  of 
the  workers  and  as  a  step  toward  the 
socialization  of  all  the  means  of  the 
common  life,  must,  the  Socialist  be- 
lieves, result  in  giving  all  the  advan- 
tages to  the  comparatively  small  class 
of  masters  at  the  expense  of  the  work- 
ers. Let  us  have  municipal  owner- 
ship, cries  the  Socialist,  but  not  in  the 
interest  of  the  master  class!  Let  us 
have  municipal  ownership  in  our  own 
interest !  Let  us  have  a  government 
of  city,  state  and  nation  by  the  wealth 
producers  for  the  wealth  producers ! 
Let  us  have  Socialism ! 

Already,  within  the  existing  capital- 
ist system,  private  enterprise  has  fail- 
ed, and  a  system  of  public  ownership 
has  been  evolved.  Our  postal  system 
is   a   pertinent   example.     We   are   so 


THE  MISSING  SPIRIT  lOI 

accustomed  to  regard  public  owner- 
ship as  a  new  and  untried  thing  that 
we  are  prone  to  forget  that  it  al- 
ready operates  to  a  very  large  extent. 
In  almost  all  our  cities  the  water  sup- 
ply is  municipally  owned,  in  many  cit- 
ies the  lighting  of  public  thorough- 
fares has  ceased  to  be  a  private  busi- 
ness. The  citizen  of  New  York  who 
desires  to  go  to  Staten  Island  may 
ride  in  a  municipally  owned  ferryboat, 
and  the  citizen  of  Chicago  can  read 
his  paper  by  the  aid  of  the  publicly 
owned  electric  lights.  We  have  pub- 
lic schools,  hospitals,  dispensaries,  li- 
braries, museums,  art  galleries,  parks, 
lodging  houses,  baths,  and  numerous 
other  public  conveniences,  because 
private  enterprise  has  failed  in  these 
directions.  They  do  not  satisfy  the 
Socialist ;  they  are  but  the  forms  wait- 
ing for  the  breath  of  life  to  be  breathed 
into  them;  but  they  represent  a  sig- 
nificant phase  of  our  social  develop- 
ment, the  failure  of  the  essential  prin- 


I02  THE  SOCIALISTS 

ciple  of  capitalism.  Some  day,  sooner 
or  later,  the  Socialist  spirit  will  be 
breathed  into  these  and  all  other  pub- 
lic institutions  which  capitalism 
evolves  in  its  vain  struggle  for  life 
and  against  self-extinction.  Socialism 
triumphant  will  inherit  a  host  of  such 
forms  from  capitalism,  and  many  of 
them  will  need  only  the  vitalizing 
principle  of  democracy  to  make  them 
truly  Socialistic  in  spirit  as  well  as  in 
form.  In  that  narrow  sense  only  can 
the  public  ownership  movement  be  de- 
scribed as  "making  for  the  Socialist 
goal." 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED  IO3 


XVI. 

SOME  OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED 

In  the  foregoing  pages  the  attempt 
has  been  made  to  give  in  plain,  every- 
day language  a  concise  explanation 
of  the  leading  principles  of  the  So- 
cialist movement.  Nov^  let  us  con- 
sider, briefly,  some  of  the  more  impor- 
tant objections  to  Socialism  w^hich 
commonly  present  themselves  to  the 
candid  mind,  and  which  are  not  else- 
where touched  upon.  It  is  impossible 
to  consider  trivial  objections,  or  even 
all  the  important  ones,  in  the  brief 
space  at  our  disposal,  but  there  is  no 
lack  of  literature  devoted  to  that  pur- 
pose. 

I.  It  is  urged  that  Socialism  would 
lead  to  corruption  and  graft  by  mak- 
ing the  spoils  of  political  office  much 


I04  THE  SOCIALISTS 

greater  than  now.  Graft,  say  these 
critics,  flourishes  now  wherever  elect- 
ed bodies  are  entrusted  with  the  con- 
trol of  large  revenues,  and  to  increase 
those  revenues  would  be  to  place  a 
premium  upon  corruption. 

Those  who  urge  this  objection  fail 
to  understand  correctly  either  the  na- 
ture of  graft  or  of  Socialism.  Graft 
certainly  flourishes  now  in  all  busi- 
ness, both  private  and  public.  That 
we  hear  more  about  graft  in  public 
business  and  less  about  graft  in  pri- 
vate business  is  natural,  and  it  is, 
moreover,  an  encouraging  fact,  for  it 
points  to  the  preventative  and  cura- 
tive value  of  a  widespread  public  in- 
terest and  criticism.  By  the  very  na- 
ture of  the  business,  graft  in  public 
busness  is  always  more  easily  detect- 
ed, and  therefore  more  easily  ended, 
than  in  private  business.  That  is  an 
important  point  which  is  often  lost 
sight  of. 

Another  point  that  is  not  generally 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         IO5 

recognized  is  that  graft  in  public  busi- 
ness is  almost  invariably  in  the  inter- 
est of  some  private  business.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  postoffice;  what  is 
the  nature  of  the  graft  in  this  impor- 
tant public  service?  Mr.  Henry  A. 
Castle,  a  former  auditor  for  the  post- 
office  department,  in  an  article*  upon 
the  deficit  in  that  department,  says: 

"In  the  United  States  last  year 
(1904)  the  enormous  sum  of  $46,000,- 
000  v^as  paid  the  railroads  for  trans- 
portation of  the  mails,  of  w^hich  sum 
$5,000,000  represented  that  inexcus- 
able and  scandalous  graft,  the  rent  of 
mail  cars,  under  v^hich  item  more  is 
paid  annually  for  the  bare  use  of  the 
cars  than  the  cars  cost  in  the  first 
place." 

The  Detroit  Journal  has  shown  that 
with  the  elimination  of  this  and  simi- 
lar forms  of  graft  the  postal  depart- 
ment would  have  had  a  surplus  of  $12,- 
000,000   or   $13,000,000    instead   of   a 

*In  Harper's  Weekly. 


I06  THE  SOCIALISTS 

deficit  of  more  than  $14,000,000.  It  is 
clear,  therefore,  that  the  graft  which 
fastens  itself  upon  the  post  office  de- 
partment, about  which  so  much  has 
been  written,  is  an  evil  arising-  out  of 
predatory  private  business  and  not  of 
public  ownership.  The  remedy  for 
the  evil  lies,  not  in  making  a  private 
business  of  the  postal  service,  but  in 
extending  the  principle  of  public  own- 
erdship  to  the  railroads.  Graft  then 
would  probably  center  in  the  business 
of  supplying  the  publicly  owned  rail- 
roads with  coal,  rails,  and  other  neces- 
sities, and  the  remedy  again  would  be 
in  the  destruction  of  that  predatory 
private  business  and  the  further  ex- 
tension of  public  ownership  and  con- 
■  trol. 

The  objection  that  it  would  lead  to 
graft  applies  to  public  ownership  only 
when  it  is  limited,  static,  and  depend- 
ent upon  private  business  for  some 
essential  thing.  In  general,  the  ob- 
jection applies  to  that  kind  of  public 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED  IO7 

ownership  which  is  advocated  by  Re- 
formers instead  of  Socialism.  It  does 
not  apply  to  Socialism,  which  is  not 
static  but  progressive  and  in  no  sense 
dependent  upon  private  business.  So- 
cialism implies  (a)  Widespread  public 
interest  and  criticism,  fatal  to  graft, 
1(b)  the  overthrow  of  that  class  inter- 
est which  produces  graft,  (c)  the  end 
of  that  private  business  which  flour- 
ishes parasitically  through  the  me- 
dium of  graft  and  the  plunder  of  pub- 
lic treasuries. 

II.  It  is  feared  by  some  that  So- 
cialism will  destroy  individuality  and 
reduce  all  men  to  a  dull  level  of  medi- 
ocre equality.  This  objection  rests 
primarily  upon  the  following  grounds : 
First,  it  is  believed  that  Socialism 
would  destroy  the  greatest  incentive 
man  has,  the  desire  for  personal  gain; 
and  second,  that  Socialism  must  in- 
evitably take  the  form  of  a  huge 
bureaucracy,  governing  everything 
from  a  central  point,  and  imposing  a 


I08  THE  SOCIALISTS 

rigid  uniformity  upon  the   life  of  its 
citizens. 

Now,  if  Socialism  involves  the  de- 
struction f)i  individuality  it  is  mani- 
festly undesirable;  a  thing  to  be 
avoided  as  long  as  possible,  and  to  be 
accepted  only  as  a  necessary  evil 
should  it  prove  to  be  inevitable.  Let 
us  briefly  consider  the  objection  in  the 
light  of  this  agreement.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
Socialist  is  as  a  rule  a  man  of  marked 
individuality.  It  takes  a  man  of  some 
individuality  to  ally  himself  with  an 
unpopular  movement  involving,  as  the 
Socialist  movement  still  does,  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  social  ostracism.  If 
we  take  a  list  of  the  leaders  of  Socialist 
thought  and  activity  and  compare 
it  with  any  similar  list  of  leaders  of 
thought  in  any  other  sphere,  we  shall 
not  find  the  Socialists  lacking  in  in- 
dividuality. Marx,  the  philosopher 
and  economist;  Lassalle,  Liebknecht 
and  Bebel,  the  political  leade^r^;  Ferri, 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         IO9 

th€  scientist;  Morris,  the  poet  and 
artist, — where  shall  we  find  a  group 
of  men  of  more  pronounced  individu- 
ality than  these?  Strange  indeed 
would  it  be  if  such  men  should  give 
their  aid  to  any  movement  calculated 
to  destroy  the  opportunities  for  in- 
dividual development  and  expression. 
For  a  more  direct  argument,  let  us 
ask  ourselves  whether  there  is  any- 
thing to  justify  the  fear  that  the  prin- 
ciple of  public  ownership  is  incompat- 
ible with  individuality  on  the  part  of 
those  who  share  its  benefits  and  re- 
sponsibilities. Is  there  anything  in 
history  to  warrant  such  a  belief?  For 
answer,  let  us  turn  back  again  to  that 
page  of  Athenian  history  over  which 
we  have  already  pondered.  Mr.  W. 
D.  P.  Bliss  has  gathered  together  a 
list  of  the  great  Athenians  whose 
names  loom  large  in  history's  pages, 
all  of  them  names  of  men  who  lived 
between  the  years  490  B.  C.  and  338 
B.   C,  a  period  of   150  years  during 


no  ^  THE  SOCIALISTS 

which     public     ownership     flourished 
Says  Mr.   Bliss: 

"What  a  record  it  is!  Socrates  (469—399 
B.C.),  Plato  (428—347  B.C.),  Aristotle  (384—322 
B.C.)  ;  surely  in  the  history  of  thought  there  are 
no  greater  names  than  these.  In  the  drama, 
^schylus  (525—456  B.C.),  Sophocles  (495—406 
B.C.),  Euripides  (480—406  B.C.)— here  are  the 
masters  of  the  classic  tragedy ;  while  Aristophanes 
(444 — 380  B.C.)  is  the  unique  founder  of  the 
world's  comedy.  In  history,  Thucydides  (470 — 
404  B.C.)  has  perhaps  no  rival,  while  Xeno- 
phon  (43C^— 355  B.C.)  has  but  few.  In  sculpture, 
Phidias  (490 — 432  B.C.)  and  Praxiteles  (390  B.C.) 
5tand  supreme,  while  Myron  (480  B.C.)  and 
Bcopas  (370  B.C.)  occupy  high  place.  In  archi- 
tecture, Ictinus  and  Callicrates,  the  architects  of 
the  Parthenon  (438  b.c),  and  Mnesicles,  the 
builder  of  the  Propylaea  (437  B.C.),  produced 
works,  of  their  period  certainly  the  most  beauti- 
ful, and  of  all  periods  the  most  perfect  buildings 
in  the  world.  In  painting,  Polygnotus  (460  B.c) 
did  work  which  cultured  Athens  placed  on  a  par 
with  her  sculpture.  In  oratory,  every  school-boy 
knows  of  Demosthenes  (385—322  B.C.),  every  col- 
lege boy  of  ^schines  (389—314  B.C.)  ;  while  their 
contemporaries  compared  Lysias  (445 — ^378  B.C.) 
and  Isocrates  (436—338  B.C.)  with  these.  In 
statesmanship,  Pericles  (495—429  B.C.),  Cimon 
(504—449  B.c),  and  Temistocles  (514—449  B.c.) 
are  names  that  would  stand  out  in  any  history; 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         III 

while  in  generalship,  Miltiades  (490  b.c),  the  hero 
of  Marathon,  and  Nicias,  the  leader  in  the  Spar- 
tan wars,  can  never  be  forgotten.  Other  names, 
among  them  Alcibiades  (450—404  B.a),  Cleon 
(422  B.C.),  Thrasybulus  (390  b.c),  Lycurgus,  the 
orator  (395—323  B.C),  and  Myronides  (457  B.  C), 
belong  to  this  period.  Thirty  one  names!  Where 
in  history  is  there  another  city  that  can  produce 
even  an  approximation  to  such  a  record?*** 

In  modern  times  we  have  no  such 
far-reaching  system  of  public  owner- 
ship to  which  we  can  turn.  Taking 
such  examples  of  the  principle  as  we 
have,  however,  does  anybody  contend 
for  a  single  moment  that  since  the 
State  has  undertaken  so  many  public 
services  there  is  less  individuality  in 
consequence?  Is  there  less  individu- 
ality today,  in  any  real  sense,  than 
there  was  in  the  days  of  privately  con- 
trolled roads  and  toll-gates?  Have 
we  less  individuality  than  our  grand- 
fathers had  because  of  our  public 
schools,  libraries,  art  galleries,  mu- 
seums, baths,  parks,  and  the  like?  Is 
♦From  The  Outlook,  Nov.  11,  1905. 


112  THE  SOCIALISTS 

our  individuality  lessened  because  we 
drink  municipally  supplied  water,  and 
depend  upon  municipal  fire-fighting 
forces  to  protect  us  from  fire?  Is 
any  man  robbed  of  his  individual  free- 
dom because  he  pays  only  two  cents 
to  send  a  letter  from  Maine  to  Cali- 
fornia and  the  same  amount  to  send 
a  letter  to  an  address  in  the  next 
street?  No  man  is  compelled  to  use 
any  municipal  or  state  service  if  he 
can  possibly  do  without  it,  or  if  he 
finds  it  more  profitable  to  do  so.  If 
any  citizen  should  prefer  to  send  his 
letters  by  private  messenger,  the 
government  would  not  try  to  stop 
him.  All  that  the  government  does  is 
to  provide  a  letter-carrying  service 
upon  a  plan  infinitely  more  econom- 
ical than  any  which  private  enterprise 
could  possibly  devisCo  It  does  not  at- 
tempt to  compel  any  person  to  use 
that  service.  If  the  municipality  pro- 
vides us  with  water  it  does  not  inter- 
fere  with   our   personal   liberties   any 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED  II3 

more  than  the  private  corporation 
which  supplies  our  gas  does.  That 
frightful  bugbear  of  so  many  timorous 
souls,  the  great  bureaucracy  which 
they  fear  extensive  public  ownership 
would  involve,  has  no  justification  in 
fact 

The  question  of  incentive  is  one 
that  merits  serious  consideration.  If 
it  is  true  that  Socialism  would  de- 
stroy the  only  incentive,  or  the  main 
incentive,  to  progress,  the  chief  motor 
impelling  mankind  onward,  then  it  is 
undesirable.  But  are  we  sure  as  to 
the  facts?  Is  it  true  that  love  of  gain 
is  the  great  incentive  of  progress  it 
is  supposed  to  be?  The  early  Chris- 
tian fathers  held  a  very  different  view. 
They  believed  and  taught  that  it  was 
the  root  of  all  the  evil  in  the  world. 
Which  view  is  right?  That  love  of 
gain,  or,  to  name  it  plainly,  greed,  is 
responsible  for  a  vast  amount  of  crime 
is  unquestionable.  It  causes  wars, 
murders,   thefts,   and   countless   other 


114  THE  SOCIALISTS 

crimes:  as  an  incentive  to  evil  and 
wrongdoing  its  influence  can  hardly 
be  overestimated.  If  v^e  reckon  all 
the  evils  of  the  world,  all  the  crimes 
and  ill  deeds  which  stain  and  besmirch 
history's  pages,  it  appears  as  the  most 
important  cause.  Greed  is,  and  ever 
has  been,  a  prolific  producer  of  deeds 
of  shame. 

When,  however,  we  turn  to  the 
brighter,  nobler  pages  of  history;  to 
the  deeds  that  glow  with  splendor 
and  thrill  our  souls  with  glory  and 
enthusiasm,  we  do  not  find  greed 
present  as  the  inspiring  cause.  We 
pause  before  a  great  picture  with 
feelings  akin  to  reverence,  knowing 
that  something  nobler  and  greater 
than  mere  love  of  gain  filled  the  art- 
ist's soul  and  guided  his  brush.  Moved 
by  some  great  poem,  we  know  that  it 
must  have  been  inspired  by  something 
else  than  the  hope  of  personal  gain. 
Greed  may  inspire  a  United  States 
Senator  to  graft  and  fraud,  but  some- 


SOME  OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         II 5 

thing  else  inspired  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  whose  memory  is  being 
honored  while  these  pages  are  being 
written.  Greed  may  inspire  a  min- 
ister of  the  poor  Christ  of  Nazareth 
to  compromise  the  gospel  of  his 
Master  with  Mammon's,  but  it  was 
not  greed  which  led  the  saintly  Father 
Damien  forth  to  his  noble  mission. 
Greed  may  have  been  powerful 
enough  to  inspire  the  slave-hunter, 
but  it  was  some  nobler  passion  which 
inspired  John  Brown.  Greed,  the  lure 
of  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  inspired 
Judas,  but  it  was  not  greed  which  in- 
spired Jesus  to  endure  the  agonies  of 
Gethsemane  and   Golgotha. 

The  love  of  gain  never  produced  a 
great  picture,  a  great  poem,  or  a  great 
play  or  opera;  it  never  won  a  great 
battle,  it  is  probably  safe  to  say  that 
it  never  led  to  a  great  invention  or 
discovery.  For  love  of  art  men  have 
painted  great  pictures,  and  written 
books  and   poems,    that    made    their 


Il6  THE  SOCIALISTS 

names  immortal;  for  love  of  science 
men  have  made  discoveries  which 
revolutionized  the  thought  of  the 
world;  for  love  of  battle  men  have 
performed  deeds  of  heroism  cele- 
brated in  song  and  story.  For  love 
of  fame,  the  desire  to  win  the  applause 
of  their  fellows,  all  these  things  have 
been  done;  and  they  have  been  done 
for  love  of  country,  or  love  of  a  great 
cause.  Milton,  it  is  said,  received  only 
$40  for  writing  Paradise  Lost, 
Whether  he  wrote  because  he  loved 
his  art  or  because  he  yearned  for 
fame,  may  not  be  known,  but  it  is 
certain  that  he  did  not  write  for  love 
of  money.  If  love  of  money  is  the 
great  inspirer,  why  is  it  that  the  far 
greater  prizes  of  the  modern  literary 
world  do  not  produce  more  Miltons 
and  Shakespeares?  Karl  Marx,  recog- 
nized all  over  the  world  now  as  one 
of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  his  age, 
turned  away  contemptuously  from 
the  offer  of  comparative  wealth  made 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         II7 

by  Bismarck  to  write  "Das  Kapital" 
while  he  toiled  and  starved  in  London. 
A  year  or  two  ago,  a  great  surgeon 
came  to  this  country  from  Vienna. 
He  came,  it  was  understood,  to  per- 
form an  operation  upon  a  little  girl, 
the  daughter  of  one  of  our  multimil- 
lionaires. While  he  was  in  the  coun- 
try he  performed  many  other  opera- 
tions, some  of  them  upon  little  chil- 
dren whose  parents  were  too  poor  to 
pay  him  anything  at  all,  yet  nobody 
believes  that  he  tried  less  earnestly  to 
help  his  poorest  patients  than  to  help 
^he  child  of  the  multimillionaire.  A 
few  years  ago,  a  great  German  physi- 
cian and  teacher  of  physicians  made 
an  important  discovery  with  regard 
to  the  nature  of  that  awful  scourge  of 
our  race,  tuberculosis,  a  discovery 
which  has  revolutionized  the  method 
of  its  treatment  by  the  medical  pro- 
fession. The  name  of  Dr.  Koch  is 
today  universally  honored  as  that  of  a 
great    benefacttjr    to    the    rox^.      But 


Il8  THE  SOCIALISTS 

supf>ose  that  Dr.  Koch  had  made  a 
secret  of  his  discovery,  or  demanded  a 
big  price  for  it,  commensurate  with 
what  he  felt  to  be  its  value,  would  he 
not  have  been  execrated  and  regarded 
as  a  moral  monster?  Had  that  other 
gresit  physician,  Professor  von  Beh- 
riag,  demanded  a  big  price  for  the 
s«ecret  of  his  anti-toxin  for  diphtheria, 
or  should  he  do  so  in  the  event  of  his 
discovering  a  similar  method  of  treat- 
ing tuberculosis,  he,  too,  would  be  uni- 
versally execrated.  Yet,  that  is  precise- 
ly what  we  ought  to  expect  them  to 
do,  according  to  this  theory  that  love 
of  gain  is  the  great  incentive  and  motor 
force  of  progress. 

No,  greed  is  the  main  incentive  to 
crime  and  wrongdoing,  but  other  in- 
centives move  men  and  women  to  the 
nobler  deeds  that  make  for  progress, 
for  sweetness  and  light  in  the  world. 
These  incentives,  love  of  art,  of 
knowledge,  of  fame,  of  country,  of 
mankind,  will  not  be  stamped  out  by 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         II9 

Socialism:  on  the  contrary,  they  may 
be  expected  to  flourish  the  more  when 
they  are  not  retarded  and  held  in 
check  by  the  poisoned  atmosphere  of 
commercialism.  Socialism  does  not 
involve  the  equal  reward  of  all  men, 
regardless  of  the  quality  of  their  ser- 
vice. It  will  give  every  man  an  op- 
portunity to  earn  the  necessities  of  life 
without  degradation  or  undue  discom- 
fort; beyond  that  it  will  hold  out  re- 
wards for  services  of  distinction,  for 
brave  deeds,  great  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions, which  men  will  strive  after 
more  earnestly  than  they  could  strive 
for  gold. 

III.  Socialism  is  often  opposed  be- 
cause of  a  supposed  connection  be- 
tween it  and  anarchism.  Nothing  is 
more  common,  especially  in  times  of 
national  agitation  consequent  upon 
some  outrageous  deed,  such  as  the  as- 
sassination of  President  McKinley, 
for  example,  than  this  confusion  of  the 
two  tiieories  one  with  another.     Yet 


120  THE  SOCIALISTS 

the  fact  remains  that  the  organized 
Socialist  movement  is  the  greatest  op- 
posing force  to  Anarchism  in  the 
world  today.  Socialism  is  the  anti- 
thesis of  Anarchism ;  the  two  are  quite 
irreconcilable.  To  save  society  from 
the  Anarchist  peril  is  no  small  part  of 
the  mission  of  the  Socialist  movement. 

In  justice  to  the  Anarchists  it  must 
be  said  that  there  is  nothing  in  An- 
archism itself  which  necessitates  a 
propaganda  of  deeds  of  violence. 
While  it  is  true  that  many  Anarchists 
have  resorted  to  violence,  there  are 
many  others,  and  among  them  some 
of  the  greatest  leaders  of  Anarchist 
thought,  who  hold  all  life  sacred  and 
believe  that  violence  and  assassination, 
like  war  and  conquest,  are  fundamen- 
tally opposed  to  the  Anarchist  ideal. 
So  much  must  be  said  in  justice  to  the 
Anarchists, 

Now,  if  we  examine  the  two  sys- 
tems of  thought,  we  shall  find  that 
Socialism   and  Anarchism  are  as  op- 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         121 

posite  as  the  poles.  While  there  may- 
be many  points  of  similarity  in  their 
criticisms  of  existing  social  conditions, 
the  Socialist  and  the  Anarchist  are 
separated  by  a  wide,  impassable  gulf. 
Socialism,  as  the  word  implies,  is  based 
on  the  idea  of  social  interest  and  re- 
sponsibility, while  Anarchism  is  based 
on  the  opposite  idea  of  individual  in- 
terest and  responsibility.  Anarchism 
negatives  the  idea  of  social  responsi- 
bility. It  regards  the  individual  as 
supreme.  Society,  according  to  the 
Anarchist,  is  merely  an  aggregation 
of  individuals,  from  which  principle 
he  reasons  that  what  is  wrong  for  an 
individual  is  wrong  for  society,  and, 
since  no  individual  can  rightly  control 
the  actions  of  another,  society  cannot 
rightly  do  so.  To  this  the  Socialist 
replies  that  just  as  a  watch  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  collection  of  wheels, 
or  a  house  is  more  than  an  aggrega- 
tion of  bricks  and  mortar,  so  society  is 
something  more  than  an  aggregation 


122  THE  SOCIALISTS 

of  individuals;  it  is  a  corporate  whole 
with  distinct  rights  and  duties. 

The  difference  in  Anarchism  and 
Socialism,  therefore,  consists  in  this, 
and  not,  as  is  often  supposed,  in  the 
fact  that  the  Socialists  do  not  believe 
in  physical  force  as  the  Anarchists 
are  popularly  supposed  to  do.  It  is 
not  a  question  of  Socialism  being  a 
milder,  less  advanced,  and  less  dan- 
gerous form  of  the  same  ideas  as  An- 
archism. The  two  theories  have  no 
relationship  whatever.  It  is  not  a 
difference  of  method,  but  of  ultimate 
aim.  Not  all  Anarchists,  nor  most  of 
them,  believe  in  physical  force  meth- 
ods, and  Socialists,  while  abhorring 
the  very  idea  of  bloodshed,  would, 
under  certain  conditions,  have  to  re- 
sort to  it.  Where  political  power,  or 
other  peaceable  means  are  denied  to 
a  people  'Vightly  strugglitig  to  be 
free,"  force  is  permissible  and  right. 
Of  such  rebellious  uses  of  force,  in- 
deed, have  the  most  glorious  pages 


SOME  OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         123 

of  history  been  written.  From  such 
a  rising  rose  this  great  republic  itself. 
But  where  other,  peaceful  means  are 
open  to  them,  the  Socialists  will  never 
choose  violence,  regarding  force  not 
as  the  **Midwife  of  Progress,"  but  as 
"The  deadly  abortionist  strangling  the 
new  society  in  the  womb  of  the  old/' 
The  Socialist  seeks  to  establish  so- 
cial paramountcy  through  legislative 
action.  And  this  social  paramountcy  is 
but  an  extension  of  the  same  active 
principle  which  we  find  expressed  in 
our  sanitary  laws,  our  educational  sys- 
tem, and  other  similar  manifestations 
of  the  collective  will  and  law.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  the  Anarchist, 
who,  after  all,  merely  carries  individu- 
alism to  its  logical  extreme,  sanitary 
laws,  education  acts,  factory  acts,  and 
all  other  such  social  legislation,  are  so 
many  "outrageous  interferences"  with 
individual  liberty.  All  legislation  is 
equally  condemned.  As  the  Prohibi- 
tionist would  scorn  the  classification  of 


1^4  THE  SOCIALISTS 

whiskey  as  good  or  bad,  declaring  that 
all  whiskey  is  bad  and  there  cannot  be 
such  a  thing  as  *^good  whiskey,"  so  the 
Anarchist  denies  that  there  can  be 
such  a  thing  as  **good  legislation/' 

When  we  say  that  Socialism  seeks 
to  establish  the  interests  of  society  as 
paramount,  it  is  not  meant  by  that  that 
Socialism  is  opposed  to  the  individual 
liberty  which  the  Anarchists  desire; 
that  it  involves  a  huge,  octopus-like 
bureaucracy  governing  all  men's  ac- 
tions, crushing  out  all  individuality, 
and  placing  all  the  relations  of  life 
under  a  vast  network  of  laws  and  regu- 
lations. The  Socialist  ideal  is  not,  as 
its  enemies  would  have  us  believe,  law 
backed  by  a  policeman.  It  does  not 
propose  to  encompass  life  with  legal 
enactments  and  restrictions.  On  the 
contrary,  its  aim  is  to  secure  to  every 
individual  the  greatest  possible  free- 
dom. Social  control  in  the  Socialist 
regime  would  be  reduced  to  the  mini- 
mum  necessary  to  protect  the  equal 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         I25 

liberties  of  all ;  it  would  take  the  form 
of  a  protection  of  the  essentials  of 
personal  freedom  by  denying  the  right 
of  any  man  to  be  master  of  another's 
bread.  Personal  liberty  is  only  pos- 
sible as  the  blossoming  of  common 
liberty. 

The  conflict  between  Socialism  and 
Anarchism  is,  therefore,  susceptible  of 
no  truce.  The  history  of  the  Socialist 
movement  is  in  large  part  the  history 
of  a  struggle  with  Anarchism.  The 
result  is  seen  today  in  the  fact  that 
wherever  Socialism  is  strong,  as  in 
Germany,  for  example.  Anarchism  is 
a  negligible  force,  and  wherever,  as  in 
Spain,  Socialism  is  weak,  Anarchism 
prevails.  Socialism  is  not  only  the  j 
greatest  force  in  the  world  opposed  to 
Anarchism,  it  is  the  only  remedy  for 
the  conditions  which  makes  Anarch- 
ists. To  sweep  away  the  hideous  an- 
omaly of  extreme  misery  side  by  side 
with  wanton  extravagance  and  colos- 
sal wealth  is  the  only  effectual  means 


126  THE  SOCIALISTS 

of  Staying  the  perilous  tide  of  Anarch- 
ism. Neither  repressive  measures  nor 
tinkering  with  the  immigration  laws 
will  accomplish  that  end,  which  is  part 
of  the  purpose  and  mission  of  Social- 
ism. 

IV.  Socialism  is  opposed  by  some 
because  it  is  believed  to  be  antagon- 
istic to  religion  and  to  the  institution 
of  marriage.  These  objections  are 
thus  coupled  because  they  are  com- 
monly associated  in  a  certain  form  of 
attack  on  Socialism.  The  usual 
method  is  to  present  a  long  string  of 
quotations  from  Socialists  of  more  or 
less  prominence  in  which  anti-religi- 
ous views  are  expressed.  Often  these 
quotations  are  so  garbled  or  dishonest- 
ly torn  from  their  contexts  as  to  mis- 
represent the  views  of  their  authors. 
This  despicable  and  dishonest  method 
of  attack  has  been  resorted  to  by  a 
section  of  the  "religious"  press  for 
many  years.  The  method  is  just  as 
dishonest  and  mean  as  that  of  the  in- 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED         127 

fidel  lecturer  who  said  that  Christ  was 
an  advocate  of  suicide,  and,  to  prove 
his  case,  read  the  two  passages,  "And 
he  (Judas)  went  away  and  hanged 
himself"  (Matthew  27:5)  and  "Go 
and  do  thou  likewise"  (Luke  10:37), 
as  one  passage! 

Robert  Ingersoll,  the  great  free- 
thinker, was  a  Republican.  Suppose 
that  some  Socialist  should  take  the 
trouble  of  compiling  a  list  of  quota- 
tions from  his  writings,  and  the  writ- 
ings of  other  noted  freethinkers  who 
have  been  Republicans,  would  it  be 
fair  to  argue  from  that  list  that  the  Re- 
publican party  is  opposed  to  religion? 
Would  it  be  fair  to  compile  such  a  list 
from  the  writings  of  Jefferson  and 
other  Democrats  who  have  been  ag- 
nostics and  free  thinkers,  and  by 
means  of  it  seek  to  brand  the  Demo- 
cratic party  as  an  anti-religious  party? 
Would  it  not  be  equally  possible  to 
compile  a  list  of  Catholics,  or  of  Spir- 
itualists,   belonging    to    either    party, 


128  THE  SOCIALISTS 

and  from  it  to  argue  that  the  party  is 
a  Catholic  or  Spiritualist  party?  Such 
cowardly  and  dishonest  methods  of  at- 
tack are  unworthy  of  serious  consid- 
eration. 

But  many  people  have  honestly  op- 
posed Socialism  because  they  have  be- 
lieved it  to  be  anti-religious.  They 
have  made  the  not  unnatural  mistake 
of  confusing  the  Socialist  theory  of  the 
economic  interpretation  of  history, 
sometimes  called  the  "materialistic 
conception''  of  history,  with  philo- 
sophic materialism  as  opposed  to  the- 
ism. They  have  concluded  that  So- 
cialism must  be  based  upon  a  theory 
fundamentally  opposed  to  the  religi- 
ous view  of  the  great  primary  First 
Cause.  Once  it  is  understood,  how- 
ever, that  this  is  not  the  case;  that 
historic  materialism  is  not  a  theory 
relating  to  the  primary  cause  of  the 
cosmic  process,  this  argument  loses  its 
weight.  Theist  and  atheist,  monist, 
agnostic  ^nd  materialist,  may  each  ac- 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED  I29 

cept  the  Socialist  theory  of  historic 
materialism  without  doing  violence  to 
religious  beliefs  or  doubts. 

True,  the  atheist  may  not  be  able  to 
see  how  it  is  possible  for  the  theist  to 
reconcile  his  theism  with  historic  ma- 
terialism; and  the  theist  may  be  un- 
able to  understand  the  process  of  rea- 
soning by  which  the  atheist  finds  in 
historic  materialism  an  argument  for 
his  views  of  the  universe  which  he 
deems  unanswerable.  Just  as  when 
the  Darwinian  theory  was  first  pro- 
pounded many  people  said  that  it  was 
atheistic,  while  good  Christians  on  the 
other  hand  accepted  it,  so  it  has  been 
with  Socialism.  Today  the  Socialist 
movement  is  made  up  of  men  and 
women  of  all  shades  of  religious  belief 
and  doubt;  adherents  of  all  the  sects 
and  creeds  which  have  arisen  in  the 
development  of  religious  thought  and 
life.  All  the  Socialist  parties  of  the 
world  declare  religion  to  be  a  matter 
of  private  judgment  and  conscience. 


130  THE  SOCIALISTS 

The  last  objection  with  which  we 
shall  deal  in  these  pages  is  that  Social- 
ism is  opposed  to  the  institution  of 
marriage  and  to  the  family  tie.  This 
objection  is  generally  put  forward  in 
the  same  manner  and  spirit  as  the  one 
concerning  religion.  Because  certain 
individual  Socialists  have  also  enter- 
tained theories  affecting  the  marriage 
relation,  unscrupulous  opponents  of 
Socialism  have  used  that  as  an  argu- 
ment against  Socialism,  quite  regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  the  great  mass 
of  Socialists  never  entertained  such 
views;  and  the  further  fact  that  the 
anti-marriage,  "free  love"  theories  in 
question  have  been  even  more  fre- 
quently and  vigorously  advocated  by 
non-Socialists.  Every  time  an  account 
appears  in  the  press  of  marital  in- 
felicity among  Socialists  the  event  is 
hailed  as  another  "proof"  that  "Social- 
ism will  destroy  the  family  and  the 
home,"  notwithstanding  that  the 
causes  of  the  trouble  may  be  entirely 


SOME   OBJECTIONS    CONSIDERED  I3I 

disassociated  from  Socialism,  and  that 
there  are  millions  of  Socialist  homes  in 
which  love  reigns  supreme. 

Once  again,  the  question  arises,  if 
such  arguments  may  be  used  against 
Socialists,  why  may  they  not  be  used 
by  Socialists  against  their  opponents? 
If  some  one  should  compile  a  list  of, 
say,  a  thousand  divorces,  the  parties  to 
which  were  all  Christians  of  more  or 
less  prominence,  would  it  justify  the 
conclusion  that  Christianity  is  an  at- 
tack on  the  marriage  relation  and  on 
the  family?  Could  the  same  rule  be  ap- 
plied to  Republicans  and  Democrats? 
This  is,  of  course,  the  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdurri  of  the  methods  of  attack 
adopted  by  the  opponents  of  Social- 
ism. 

So  far  as  Socialism  will  affect  the 
conjugal  relations  at  all,  it  may  be 
safely  predicted  that  it  will  tend  to  pre- 
serve and  strengthen  them.  By  secur- 
ing to  women  their  economic  indepen- 
dence, a  blow  would  be  struck  at  the 


132  THE  SOCIALISTS 

hideous  commercialization  of  marriage 
so  common  at  present.  Tens  of  thous- 
ands of  women,  afraid  to  encounter  the 
cruel  struggle  for  existence,  marry  for 
homes  and  security  of  a  livelihood 
without  the  sanction  of  love,  the  only 
sanction  for  the  marriage  relation. 
The  records  of  our  divorce  courts 
abound  with  instances  of  matrimonial 
failure  due  to  this  cause.  As  Professor 
Richard  T.  Ely  says :  "The  causes  for 
divorce  have  been  shown  by  the  Nation- 
al Department  of  Labor  to  be  largely 
economic,  it  is  the  pressure  of  economic 
wants  in  the  lower  middle  class  which 
is  most  fruitful  of  divorce.''*  Lower 
still  in  the  social  scale,  the  problem  of 
the  desertion  of  wives  and  families  ap- 
pears. Investigations  of  this  problem 
by  Charity  Organization  Societies, 
bodies  not  prone  to  exaggerating  econ- 
omic causes,  have,  without  exception, 
shown  economic  causes,  such  as  low 
wages  and  unemployment,  to  be  prime 
causes  of  this  evil  of  wife  desertion. 

♦Political  Economy,  p.  261. 


CONCLUSION  133 

Socialism  would  remove  these  causes. 
Finally,  there  is  the  great  evil  of 
prostitution,  due  also  in  very  large 
measure  to  environmental  and  econ- 
omic causes  which  Socialism  would  re- 
move. The  moral  perils  attendant 
upon  child  labor;  low  wages  which 
make  decent  marriages  impossible  for 
thousands  of  men  and  women,  and  the 
resultant  creation  of  *'she  towns"  on 
the  one  hand  and  "he  towns"  on  the 
other ;  the  low  wages  paid  to  working 
girls  and  women,  and  the  conditions  of 
employment  so  vividly  described  in 
that  impressive  book.  The  Long 
Day^  are  all  important  factors  in  the 
creation  of  the  Social  Evil.  It  is  not 
claimed  that  Socialism  will  perfect  hu- 
man nature  so  that  under  it  marital 
troubles  and  sexual  vices  will  disap- 
pear, but  it  is  confidently  claimed  that 
Socialism  will  remove  some  of  the 
most  fruitful  causes  of  these  evils. 
Socialism  comes  as  the  Emancipator 
of  Woman  and  the  Protector  of  the 
Home. 


134  THE  SOCIALISTS 


XVII. 

CONCLUSION 

The  sole  aim  of  the  writer  of  this 
little  volume  has  been  to  present  the 
claims  of  Socialism  candidly  and  in 
simple  language.  If  it  serves  to  help 
its  readers  to  a  clearer  understanding 
of  the  aims  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment its  purpose  will  have  been 
abundantly  served  and  5ts  exis- 
tence justified.  There  are  many 
important  subjects  which  have  been 
only  briefly  touched  upon  in  these 
pages  for  a  fuller  treatment  of  which 
the  reader  is  referred  to  the  many  ex- 
cellent books  devoted  to  them,  a  brief 
list  of  which  will  be  found  at  the  end  of 
this  volume.  In  conclusion,  it  may  be 
w^l    to    answer   briefly    the    quiestion 


CONCLUSION  135 

which  must  present  itself  to  the  mind 
of  every  one  who  feels  the  justice  and 
reasonableness  of  the  Socialist  posi- 
tion, "What  can  I  do  to  help  onward 
the  great  movement?" 

Many  years  ago,  the  good  quaker 
poet,  John  Greenleaf  Whittier,  advised 
the  young  men  of  his  day  to  *'seek  for 
some  just  and  despised  cause  and  at- 
tach themselves  to  it."  Today  we  call 
upon  all  men  and  women,  young  and 
old  alike,  who  believe  that  the  Social- 
ist cause  is  just,  to  attach  themselves 
to  it.  By  voting  for  Socialism  if  they 
have  votes,  by  urging  others  to  vote 
for  it  if  they  have  no  votes  themselves; 
by  carefully  studying  its  literature  and 
equipping  themselves  to  plead  its  cause 
•successfully,  either  in  private  or  in 
public,  and  to  defend  it  whenever  the 
need  arises,  it  is  possible  for  every 
man  and  woman  who  believes  in 
Socialism  to  identify  himself  or  herself 
with  it.  That  is  the  minimum  of  ser- 
vice to  be  expected  from  the  earnest 


136  THE  SOCIALISTS 

man  or  woman  who  believes  that  the 
Socialist  cause  is  just  and  true. 

A  still  greater  service  is  possible  by 
joining  the  Socialist  Party,  the  organ- 
ized effort  of  thousands  of  devoted  men 
and  women  of  all  races  and  creeds  to 
develop  the  Socialist  movement  in 
America  along  intelligent  lines.  The 
Socialist  Party  exists  primarily  for 
the  purpose  of  making  Socialists.  By 
carefully  organized  propaganda  it  is 
possible  for  people  to  accomplish  much 
more  in  the  way  of  creating  Socialist 
sentiment  than  the  same  people  could 
accomplish  by  acting  individually.  Not 
only  so,  but  by  having  a  well  organized 
political  party  to  carry  on  political 
campaigns  it  is  rendered  possible  to 
keep  the  Socialist  cause  from  being 
trailed  in  the  dirt  by  freaks  on  the  one 
hand,  or  by  charlatans  on  the  other. 
Organized  in  every  state  and  territory, 
the  Socialist  Party  is  open  to  every 
man  or  woman  desiring  to  join  it,  pro- 
vided that  they  renounce  all  connec- 


CONCLUSION  137 

tion  with  any  and  every  other  political 
party,  and  accept  the  principles  set 
forth  in  the  Socialist  Party  Platform 
and  the  rules  of  the  Socialist  Party. 

The  Socialist  Party  differs  in  many 
important  respects  from  every  other 
political  party.  In  the  first  place,  all 
its  members  pay  "dues,"  a  small 
monthly  sum,  for  the  support  of  the 
party.  This  unusual  practice  is  observ- 
ed for  the  reason  that  it  is  a  v^orking- 
class  party;  it  is  the  safeguard  of  the 
party  against  corruption  and  betrayal. 
The  other  great  political  parties  have 
no  such  system.  They  get  their  funds, 
as  the  current  insurance  investigations 
in  New  York  have  shown,  through 
grafting  upon  great  corporations.  In 
reality  these  great  corporate  interests 
buy  up  the  political  parties  and, 
because  they  own  them,  control 
them  in  all  essential  particulars.  The 
Socialist  Party  does  not  get  its 
funds  that  way,  but  from  the  month- 
ly payments  of  its  members,  and  their 


138  THE  SOCIALISTS 

voluntary  contributions.  It  is  the  only 
party  in  the  country  which  publishes 
regularly  a  full  account  of  all  its  ex- 
penditures, including  its  campaign 
funds.  The  Socialist  Party  is  not  run 
by  "bosses/'  either  good  or  bad,  but  by 
its  members,  the  rank  and  file.  Every 
member  has  an  equal  voice  and  vote  in 
the  management  of  the  party's  affairs 
and  the  organization  is  the  most  demo- 
cratic possible. 

If,  reader,  you  feel  it  to  be  your  duty 
to  unite  w^ith  this  great  movement  for 
the  freedom  of  the  working-class  from 
its  present  thralldom  and  bondage,  join 
the  Socialist  Party  in  your  locality.  If 
you  do  not  know  the  address  of  the 
nearest  branch,  write  to  the  National 
Secretary  of  the  party  for  information. 
If  there  is  a  local  organization  of  the 
party  in  your  neighborhood  he  will 
give  you  the  address.  If  there  is  none, 
he  will  tell  you  bow  to  become  a  "mem- 
ber-at-large"  of  the  party,  and,  better 
still,  how  to  form  a  local  organi;fation. 


CONCLUSION  139 

"Come,  then,  since  all  things  call  us,  the  living 

and  the  dead. 
And  o'er  the  weltering  tangle  a  glimmering  light 

is  shed. 
Come,  then,  let  us  cast  off  fooling,  and  put  by 

ease  and  rest. 
For  the  Cause  alone  is  worthy  till  the  good  days 

bring  the  rest. 
Come,  join  in  the  only  battle  wherein  no  man  can 

fail, 
Where  whoso  fadeth  and  dieth,  yet  his  deed  shall 

still  prevail. 
Ah !  come,  cast  off  all  fooling,  for  this  at  least  we 

know: 
That  the  Dawn  and  the  Day  is  coming,  and  forth 

the  Banners  go." 


140  THE  SOCIALISTS 


APPENDICES. 


A  DREAM   WHICH    MUST   COME  TRUE. 

A  profound  faith  in  the  ultimate  realization 
of  human  brotherhood  and  comradeship  is  im- 
plied by  the  very  name  we  Social-Democrats* 
bear.  Good  old  Bronterre  O'Brien,  who  in  the 
rich  mint  of  his  powerful  mind  coined  the  phrase 
we  now  so  proudly  write  for  name  upon  our 
banners,  sounded  the  very  depths  of  our  philo- 
sophy and  scaled  the  heights  of  our  faith  when 
he  declared,  more  than  sixty  years  ago,  that 
Brotherhood  could  never  be  realized  in  the  world 
until  Liberty  reigned  in  the  world;  and  that 
Liberty  could  never  reign  in  the  world  until  the 
system  permitting  private  ownership  of  socially 
necessary  things  is  destroyed. 

So  when  we  today  declare  for  the  social 
ownership  of  all  socially  necessary  things;  when 
we  denounce  the  system  which  makes  private 
property  master  of  the  common  life;  when  we 
urge  our  demands  that  the  means  of  the  common 
life,  produced  as  they  are  by  the  common  labor 
and  experience  of  the  world,  be  owned  in  com- 

*Iu  Europe  the  Socialists  are  most  often  called  Social 
Democrats — That  is.  Socialists  who  believe  in  Democratic 
Socialism    as    opposed   to    State    Socialism. 


APPENDICES  141 

mon,   we   are  more  than  a  mere  political  party 
aiming  at  political  supremacy. 

We  are  the  apostles  of  the  great  universal  re- 
ligious impulse,  the  faith  of  Humanity  that  the 
Brotherhood  of  Man  shall  yet  be  universally 
recognized. 

Thus  we  proclaim  our  faith  in  the  highways 
and  the  byways  of  the  world  and  sing  it  in  our 
song.  We  are  the  heralds  of  the  Golden  Age  of 
Peace.  "The  day  is  coming/'  we  cry,  "when  the 
cannon's  roar  will  be  silenced  by  the  Peace-Song 
of  a  free  and  gladsome  world.  The  day  is  com- 
ing, its  dawning  is  at  hand,  when  Socialism  tri- 
umphant will  break  down  the  last  barrier  that 
keeps  a  single  child  from  the  fullest  enjoyment 
of  the  vast  heritage  prepared  for  it  through  long 
centuries  of  pain  and  toil.  The  day  is  at  hand 
when  there  shall  be  no  man  master  of  another's- 
bread  and  life;  when  the  words  "master"  and 
"slave"  and  all  their  hypocritical  latter-day  equiv- 
alents shall  pass  from  human  speech  and  mem- 
ory. The  day  is  nearer  than  most  of  us  think 
or  know  when  the  ghoulish  coining  of  little  child 
lives  into  dividends  shall  cease  and  the  tender 
babes  be  given  their  natural  fellowship  with  bird 
and  flower." 

"Dreams  !  Dreams !  Only  dreams  !"  you  say. 
Yes,  we  are  dreamers  and  this  is  our  great  and 
glorious  dream.  But  before  you  sneer  at  the 
dreamers  or  the  dream,  look  at  the  great  army 
of  dreamers. 

Yonder  peasant  on  Russian  steppe,  bowed  with 


142  THE  SOCIALISTS 

Oppressing  toil,  dreams  that  dream,  sees  that 
vision  of  a  redeemed  and  revivified  world,  and 
the  load  of  his  life  is  lightened.  And  that  poor 
mother  in  Siberian  exile,  torn  from  the  home 
where  she  was  the  love-crowned  queen,  could 
not  bear  the  anguish  of  her  lone  exile  but  for 
the  same  vision. 

In  German  workshop  and  garrison  tired  work- 
ers and  pallid  prisoners  dream  the  same  dream 
and  their   faces  are  lit  by  the   same  hope-light. 

From  the  vineyards  of  France  and  from  her 
cities  comes  sound  of  glad  songs :  They  are  sing- 
ing of  the  same  hope.  And  Italy  and  Spain 
join  in  the  strain. 

From  England's  industrial  hells  and  from  the 
abysses  of  her  great  cities,  those  frightful  dens 
of  misery  and  squalor,  a  shout  of  increasing  vol- 
ume tells  that  they  have  seen  the  same  vision 
and  dreamed  the  same  dream  as  that  which  in- 
spires the  workers  of  our  own  land  from  the 
crowded  tenements  of  New  York  to  the  crowded 
tenements  of  San  Francisco;  on  the  small  New 
England  farm  and  the  great  prairie  wheat  farm; 
in  the  coal  mines  that  lie  in  the  heart  of  the 
Alleghenies,  and  the  metaliferous  mines  of  the 
Rockies. 

In  far  off  Australia  tens  of  thousands  of  toil- 
ers, gathered  from  all  climes  and  speaking  all 
tongues,  find  inspiration  in  the  same  dream. 
It  is  life  itself  to  them.  And  where  Africa's 
millions  gather  in  mine  or  factory,  upon  the 
cities'  streets  or  the  great  karoo,  the  dream  unites 


APPENDICES  143 

Boer  and  Briton,  Kaffir  and  White  in  one  strong 
brotherhood. 

And  even  'mid  the  battle's  din  where  Russ 
slave  and  Jap  slave  fight  till  their  blood  mingles 
in  one  red  stream  at  the  bidding  of  their  mas- 
ters, the  vision  appears  and  hatred,  ignorant, 
blind  hatred,  is  banished  from  many  a  heart. 

How  vast  the  army  of  dreamers ! 

Time  was  when  only  the  lone  prophet  in 
Israel  dreamed  such  a  dream  or  saw  such  a 
vision.  He  saw  through  the  centuries  the  time 
to  be  "when  the  swords  shall  be  beaten  into 
plowshares  and  the  spears  into  pruning  hooks." 
He  told  of  his  vision,  but  men  derided  and  cried 
^ut,  "Dreamer  of  vain  dreams !"  The  number 
of  the  prophets  grew  but  slowly.  The  lonely 
Nazarene,  homeless  and  poor;  Campanella  the 
Italian  monk;  Sir  Thomas  More,  Saint  Simon 
and  Fourier,  Robert  Owen  and  the  brave  German 
tailor,  Wilhelm  Weitling.  So  the  line  of  the 
"dreamers"  grew  and  spanned  the  centuries. 

But  not  till  the  clarion  call  of  the  great  twin 
spirits,  Marx  and  Engels,  called  upon  the  work- 
ers of  the  world  to  unite  did  we  realize  that  the 
power  to  make  the  vision  real  rested  entirely 
with  ourselves. 

Now  how  the  army  of  dreamers  has  grown ! 
And  how  it  grows!  It  is  no  longer  the  dream' 
of  the  lone  prophet  or  the  poet.  It  is  the  dream 
now  of  millions  in  all  lands^  of^all  creeds,  of  all 
tongues.  It  is  the  dream  of  nations  now.  And 
as  Lowell  truly  sings:  "The  dreams  that  nations 
dream  come  truer' 


144  THE  SOCIALISTS 

Aye,  such  dreams  "come  true."  No  powet-  can 
prevent  the  fulfillment  of  the  dream  of  the  world's 
brain  and  heart.  Our  red  flag,  symbolizing  as 
it  does  our  world-kinship  and  fraternity  and 
the  seas  of  martyr  blood  shed  for  the  cause, 
shall  yet  float  in  triumph  from  every  state  cap- 
itol  in  the  land. 

Aye,  and  from  the  Capitol  at  Washington  it 
shall  proudly  fly — to  be  answered  from  across 
seas  by  like  emblems  of  the  Socialist  triumph  of 
our  comrades  in  Europe  and  Asia,  Africa  and 
Australasia. 

*'Softly  sweet  as  living  springs 

Mighty  hopes  are  blowing  wide: 

Passionate    prefigurings 

Of  a  world  revivified, 

Dawning  thoughts   that   ere   they  set 

Shall  possess  the  Ages  yet!" 

II. 

A   SUGGESTED  COURSE   OF   READING   FOR    STUDENTS   OF 
SOCIALISM. 

In  the  foregoing  pages  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  state  briefly,  in  popular  language,  the 
leading  principles  of  Scientific  Socialism.  Much 
has  been  barely  touched  upon,  and  much  else  left 
unmentioned.  It  has  been  thought  best,  there- 
fore, to  include  this  suggested  course  of  study, 
in  the  form  of  a  list  of  books  easily  accessible, 
and  requiring  no  special  training  on  the  part  of 
the  reader,  for  those  who  after  reading  this 
little   volume   may   desire   to   study  the   subject 


APPENDICES  14s 

mDfe  thoroughly.  No  attempt  is  made  to  pro- 
vide a  bibliography  of  Socialism,  but  a  brief  list 
of  useful  works  upon  various  aspects  of  Social- 
ism. 

(A)   History  of  Socialism. 

The  History  of  Socialism,  by  Thomas   Kirkup. 

(The   Macmillan  Co.,  $1.50.) 
French  and  German  Socialism  in  Modern  Times, 

by    Richard    T.    Ely.      (Harper    Brothers,    75 

cents.) 
Socialism:  Its  Growth  and  Outcome,  by  William 

Morris  and  E.  Belfort  Bax.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr 

&  Co.,  $1.25.) 
German    Socialism    and    Ferdinand    Lassalle,   by 

W.  H.  Dawson.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  $1.00.) 
Ferdinand    Lassalle    as    a    Social    Reformer,   by 

Eduard    Bernstein.      (Chas.    H.    Kerr   &    Co., 

$1.00.) 
The  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States, 

by   Morris   Hillquit.    (Funk  &   Wagnalls    Co., 

$175.) 
The  article  on  "Socialism"  in  the  New  Interna- 
tional Encyclopedia,  by  Prof.  R.  T.  Ely,  is  worthy 

of  special  attention. 

(J5)    Philosophy   of  Socialism, 

Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific,  by  Friederich 
Engels.  (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  cloth  50  cents, 
paper   10  cents.) 

The  Quintessence  of  Socialism,  by  Prof.  A.  E. 
Schaffle.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  $1.00.)     This 


146  THE  SOCIALISTS 

is  a  fair  and  lucid  statement  of  Socialism  by 

an  opponent. 
Socialism  and  Modern  Science,  by  Enrico  Ferri. 

(Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  $1.00.) 
The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History,  by  Prof. 

E.    R.    A.    Seligman.      (The     Macmillan     Co., 

$1.25.) 
Mass  and  Class,  by  W.  J.  Ghent.     (The  Macmil- 
lan Co.,  cloth  $1.25,  paper  25   cents.) 
The  World's  Revolutions,  by  Ernest  Untermann. 

(Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  50  cents.) 

(C)  Economics  of  Socialism. 

Wage  Labor  and  Capital,  by  Karl  Marx.     (Chas. 

H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  5  cents.) 
Value,  Price  and  Profit,  by  Karl  Marx.     (New 

York  Labor  News  Co.,  50  cents.) 
The  Economics  of  Socialism,  by  Henry  M.  Hynd- 

man.     (London:  The  Twentieth  Century  Press, 

$1.00.) 
Principles    of    Scientific    Socialism,   by   Chas.   H. 

Vail.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  $1.00.) 

CD)   The  Trust  Problem. 

Collectivism,  by  Emile  Vandervelde.  (Chas.  H. 
Kerr  &  Co.,  50  cents.)  . 

The  Evolution  of  Modern  Capitalism,  by  John 
A.  Hobson. 

Monopolies  and  Trusts  and  Studies  in  the  Evo- 
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Ely.  (The  Macmillan  Co.,  each  $1.25.  These 
volumes  are  very  suggestive  and  useful,  though 
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APPENDICES  147 

The  American  Farmer,  by  A.  M.  Simons.  (Chas. 
H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  50  cents.)  Deals  with  concen- 
tration in  agriculture;  a  most  suggestive  and 
important  little  work. 

(E)    Other  Subjects. 

(j)  Anarchism:  Socialism  and  Anarchism,  by 
George  Plechanoff.  (London :  The  Twentieth 
Century   Press,   25   cents.) 

Anarchism,  its  History  and  Theory,  by  E.  V. 
Zenker.  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  $1.50.)  A 
critique  of  Anarchism  from  a  bourgeous  view- 
point, but  suggestive. 

(2)  Poverty:  American  Pauperism,  by  Isador 
Ladoff.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  50  cents.) 

Poverty,  by  Robert  Hunter.  (The  Macmillan 
Co.,   $1.50  and   25   cents.) 

The  Bitter  Cry  of  the  Children,  by  John  Spargo. 
(The  Macmillan  Co.,  $1.50.)  Deals  with  pov- 
erty in  its  relation  to  children. 

(3)  Application  of  Socialist  Principles:  Social- 
ists in  French  Municipalities,  compiled  by  Er- 
nest Untermann.  (Chas.  H.  Kerr  &  Co.,  5 
cents.) 

Underfed    School    Children:    The    Problem    and 

the  Remedy,  by  John  Spargo.     (Chas.  H.  Kerr 

&  Co.,  10  cents.) 
What  the  Socialists  Would  Do  if  Elected  in  This 

City,   by   A.    M.    Simons.      (CThas.    H.   Kerr  & 

Co.,  5  cents.) 

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Confessions    of   a   Drone.     By    Joseph    Medill 

Patterson.      Paper 05 

Crime   and   Criminals.     By   Clarence   Darrow. 

Paper 10 

Easy  Iiessons  in  Socialism.    By  William  H. 

Leffing-well.      Paper 05 

Economic  Evolution.  By  Paul  Laf argue.  Pa- 
per    05 

Economic  Foundation  of  Art,  The.    By  A.  M. 

Simons.    Paper  .  . 05 

Economic  Foundations  of  Society.   By  Achille 

Loria.     Cloth 1.25 

Eig'hteenth  Brumaire  of  Iiouis  Bonaparte.  By 

Karl  Marx.    Paper 25 

End  of  the  World,  The.  Dr.  M.  Wilhelm  Mey- 
er.   Cloth 50 

Essays    on    the    Materialistic    Conception    of 

History.    By   Antonio  Labriola.     Cloth...    1.00 

Ethics    and    the    Materialistic    Conception    of 

History.     By    Karl    Kautsky.     Cloth 50 

Evolution  of  Man,  The.  By  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 

Cloth 50 

Evolution    of    the    Class    Strugrg-le,    The.     By 

William    H.    Noyes.     Paper 05 

Evolution,  Social  and  Org-anic.    By  Arthur  M. 

Lewis.    Cloth 50 

Feuerhach:  The  Roots  of  the  Socialist  Philos- 
ophy.    By    Frederick   Engels.     Cloth 50 

Folly  of  Beingf  "Good,"  The.    By  Charles  H. 

Kerr.     Paper 05 

Forces  That  Make  for  Socialism  in  America. 

By    John    Spargo.     Paper.. 05 

From  Revolution  to  Revolution.    By  George 

D.   Herron.     Paper 05 

Germs  of  Mind  in  Flants.    By  R.  H.  Prance. 

Cloth    50 

Ck>d  and  My  Neig'hhor.   By  Robert  Blatchf  ord. 

Cloth 1.00 


CHARLES  H.  KEBR  &  COMPANY^S  BOOKS  3 

God's  Children.    By  James  Allman.    Cloth 50 

Goethe's  Paust,  a  Fragment  of  Socialist  Criti- 
cism.    By    Marcus    Hitch.     Cloth.. 50 

Sistory    and  Economics.     By   J.    E,    Sinclair. 

Paper 05 

How  I  Acquired  My  Millions.  By  a  Big-  Capi- 
talist.   Paper 05 

Human,  All  Too  Human.  By  Friedrich  Niet- 
zsche.   Cloth 50 

Human  Aptitudes.  By  C.  Osborne  Ward.  Cloth  1.50 

Imprudent  Marriag-es.    By  Robert  Blatchford. 

Paper 05 

Industrial    Democracy.     By    J.     W.    Kelley. 

Paper 05 

Industrial  Unionism:  Its  Economic  Neces- 
sity.   By  William  E.  Trautman.    Paper.  .      .05 

Industry  and  Democracy.  By  Lewis  J.  Dun- 
can.   Paper 05 

Intemperance   and  Poverty.    By   T.   Twining. 

Paper 05 

King-dom  of  God  and  Socialism,  The.   By  Rev. 

Robert    M.    Webster.     Paper 05 

l^abor  Catechism  of  Political  Economy,  A.   By 

C.    Osborne    Ward.     Cloth 1.00 

Iiandmarks    of    Scientific    Socialism.      (Anti- 

Duehring).     By   Frederick   Engels.     Cloth  1.00 

Iiast  Days  of  the  Buskin  Co-operative  Asso- 
ciation, The.    By  Isaac  Broome.    Cloth..      .50 

Life  and  Death.    By  Dr.  E.  Teichmann.    Cloth     .50 

Life  of  Frederick  Eng-els.    By  Karl  Kautsky. 

Paper 10 

Looking*     Forward.      By     Philip     Rappaport. 

Cloth 1.00 

Love's  Coming"  of  Ag-e.  By  Edward  Carpenter. 

Cloth 1.00 

Making  of  the  World,  The.    By  Dr.  M.  Wil- 

helm  Meyer.    Cloth 50 

Manifesto  de  la  Komunista  Partio.    English 

and   Esperanto.     Cloth 50 

Manifesto  of  the  Communist  Party.   By  Marx 

and  Engels.    Cloth,   50   cents;    paper, 10 

Man  Under  the  Machine,  The.    By  A.  M.  Si* 

mons.    Paper 05 

Marxian  Economics.    By  Ernest  Untermann. 

Cloth 1.00 

Marx   on    Cheapness.     Translated   by   Robert 

Rives  LaMonte.    Paper 05 

Memoirs   of  Karl  Marx.    By  Wilhelm   Lieb- 

knecht.    Cloth 50 

Merrie  England.  By  Robert  Blatchford.  Pa- 
per    10 


4  CHARLES   H.   KEEE  &  COMPANY'S  BOOKS 

Mission  of  the  Working  Class,  The.    By  Rev. 

Charles  H.  Vail.    Paper 05 

Modem  Socialism.   By  Charles  H.  Vail.   Cloth     .75 
Paper 25 

Morals  and  Socialism.   By  Kerr;  also  The  Odd 

Trick.    By  Bax.    Paper 05 

Origfin  of  the  Pamily,  Private  Property  and 

the  State.    By  Frederick  Engels.    Cloth..      .50 

Our  Bourgeois  Iiiterature:    Tlie  Reason  and 

the  Remedy.   By  Upton  Sinclair.    Paper.  .      .05 

Fackingtown:    A  Study  of  the  Chicago  Stock 

Yards.     By    A.    M.    Simons.     Paper 05 

Passing  of  Capitalism,  The.  By  Isador  La- 
doff.     Cloth,    50   cents;     paper 25 

Perfecting  the  Earth.    By  Dr.  C.  W.  Woold- 

ridge.    Cloth 1.00 

Philosophy  of  Socialism,  The.  By  A.  M.  Sim- 
ons.    Paper 05 

Physical  Basis  of  Mind  and  Morals.    By  M. 

H.   Pitch.    Cloth 1.00 

Plutocracy  or  Nationalism,  Which?  By  Ed- 
ward Bellamy.    Paper 05 

Positive  Outcome  of  Philosophy.    By  Joseph 

Dietzgen.    Cloth 1.00 

Positive  School  of  Criminology,  The.  By  En- 
rico   Ferri..    Cloth 50 

Principles    of   Scientific    Socialism.     By   Rev. 

Charles  H.  Vail.    Cloth,   $1.00;    paper 35 

Pride  of  Intellect,  The.  By  Franklin  H.  Went- 

worth.     Paper 05 

Pullman  Strike,  The.    By  W.  H.  Carwardine. 

Paper 25 

Rational   Prohibition.    By   Walter   L.   Young. 

Paper 05 

Real  Religion  of  Today,  The.  By  Rev.  Wil- 
liam   Thurston    Brown.     Paper 05 

Recent  Progress  of  the  Socialist  Movement. 

By   Morris   Hillquit.     Paper 10 

Realism  in  Literature  and  Art.    By  Clarence 

S.  Darrow.    Paper 05 

Rebel  at  Large,  The.   By  May  Beals.   Cloth. .  .      .50 

Rebels  of  the  New  South.   By  Walter  Marion 

Raymond.     Cloth 1.00 

Recording    Angel,    The.     By    Edwin    Arnold 

Brenholtz.    Cloth 1.00 

Relation   of   Religion   to   Social   Bthics,   The. 
By   William   Thurston   Brown.     Paper 05 

Republic  of  Plato.  Translated  by  Alexander 
Kerr.  Books  I,  II,  III,  IV,  V  and  VI. 
Each,  paper 15 

Republic,  The.    By  N.  P.  Andresen.    Cloth...   1.00 


CHARLES   H.  KERR  &  COMPANY^S  BOOKS  5 

Revolution  and  Counter-Bevolution.    By  Karl 

Marx.    Cloth 50 

Bigrlit   to   Be   Iiazy,    and   Other   Studies.     By 

Paul  Lafargue.    Cloth 50 

Revolutionary  Essays  in  Socialist  Faith  and 

Fancy.    By  Peter  E.  Burrowes.    Cloth...   1.00 

Rise  of  the  American  Proletarian.   By  Austin 

Lewis.    Cloth 1.00 

Root  of  All  Kinds  of  Evil.    By  Rev.  Stewart 

Sheldon.     Paper ;      .10 

Russian  Bastile,  The.    By  Simon  O.  Pollock. 

Cloth    50 

Sale  of  an  Appetite,  The.    By  Paul  Lafargue. 

Cloth    50 

Scab,  The.    By  Jack  London.    Paper 05 

Science    and   Revolution.     By    Ernest   Unter- 

mann.    Cloth 50 

Science  and  Socialism.  By  Robert  Rives  La- 
Monte.    Paper 05 

Science  and  the  Workingfman.    By  Ferdinand 

Lassalle.    Paper 25 

Shoes,  Pigfs  and  Problems.   By  Evelyn  Gladys. 

Paper 05 

Single  Tax  Versus  Socialism.  By  A.  M.  Sim- 
ons.    Paper 05 

Sketch    of    Social    Evolution,    A.     By    H.    W, 

Boyd  Mackay.    Paper 05 

Social    and    Philosophical    Studies.     By    Paul 

Lafarg-ue.     Cloth 50 

Social   Revolution,    The.     By    Karl    Kautsky. 

Cloth 50 

Socialism   and   Farmers.    By   A.    M.    Simons. 

Paper 05 

Socialism  and  Philosophy.    By  Antonio  Lab- 

riola.    Cloth 1.00 

Socialism  and  Slavery.    By  H.  M.  Hyndman. 

Paper 05 

Socialism   and  the  Home.    By   May   Walden. 

Paper 05 

Socialism  and  the  Org-anized  l^abor  Move- 
ments.   By  May  Wood  Simons.    Paper...      .05 

Socialist    and    Trade    Unionism.     By    Daniel 

Lynch  and  Max  S.   Hayes.    Paper „05 

Socialism  in  French  Municipalities.  Trans- 
lated from  Official  Reports.    Paper 05 

Socialism,  Positive  and  Neg'ative.    By  Robert 

Rives   La   Monte.     Cloth 50 

Socialism,   Revolution   and   Internationalism. 

By    Gabriel    Deville.     Paper 10 

Socialism,  Utopian  and  Scientific.  By  Freder- 
ick Engels.    Cloth,   50  cents;    paper 10 


6  CHARLES   H.   KERR  &  COMPANY^S  BOOKS 

Socialism   vs.    Anarchy.     By   A.    M.    Simons. 

Paper 05 

Socialism  vs.  Singfle  Tax.    A  Debate.    Paper..     .25 

Socialism,  What  It  Is  and  What  It  Seeks  to 
Accomplish.  By  Wilhelm  Liebknecht.  Pa- 
per   10 

Socialist  Catechism.  By  Charles  E.  Cline.  Pa- 
per  05 

Socialist  Movement,  The.  By  Rev.  Charles  H. 

Vail.    Paper 10 

Socialist  Party  of  America,  Platform,  Meth- 
ods, etc.    The.    Paper 05 

Socialist     Songs.      By    William    Morris    and 

others.    Paper 05 

Socialist    Songs    with    Music.     Compiled    by 

Charles  H.   Kerr.    Paper 10 

Socialist    Song's,    Dialogfues   and   Recitations. 

Compiled  by  Josephine  R.  Cole.    Paper.  .  ,      .25 

Socialist  View  of  Mr.  Rockefeller,  A.  By  John 

Spargo.     Paper 05 

Socialists,  The.    By  John  Spargo.    Cloth 50 

Paper 10 

Socialization  of  Humanity,  The.    By  Charles 

Kendall   Franklin.     Cloth 2.00 

Some  of  the  Philosophical  Essays  of  Joseph 

Dietzgen.      Cloth 1.00 

State  and  Socialism,  The.  By  Gabriel  Deville. 

Paper 10 

stories  of  the  Struggle.    By  Morris  Winchev- 

sky.     Cloth 50 

Ten  Blind  I^eaders  of  the  Blind.    By  Arthur 

M.   Lewis.     Cloth 50 

Theoretical  System  of  Karl  Marz,  The.    By 

Louis   B.    Boudin.     Cloth 50 

Thoughts  of  a  Pool.   By  Evelyn  Gladys.   Cloth  1.00 

Triumph  of  Life,  The.   By  Wilhelm  Boelsche. 

Cloth 50 

Trust    Question,    The.     By    Rev.    Charles   H. 

Vail.     Paper 05 

Trusts  and  Imperialism.    By  H.  Gaylord  Wil- 

shire.    Paper 05 

Underfed  School  Children.    By  John  Spargo. 

Paper 10 

Under  the  Lash.   A  Drama  in  five  acts.   By  C. 

F.  Quinn.     Paper 25 

Universal  Kinship,  The.  By  J.  Howard  Moore. 

Cloth 1.00 

Useful  Work  Versus  Useless  Toil.  By  Wil- 
liam Morris.    Paper 05 

▼alue,  Price  and  Profit.  By  Karl  Marx.  Cloth     .50 
Paper 10 


CHAfiLBS   H.  KEKE  &  COMPANY'S  BOOKS  7 

Wage  iMSibov  and  Capital.  By  Karl  Marx.  Pa- 
per   05 

Walt  Whitman:    A  Study.    By  Mila  Tupper 

Maynard.    Cloth 1.00 

What  Are  We  Here  Por?  By  F.  Dundas  Todd. 

Paper 50 

What's  So  and  What  Isn't.   By  John  M.  Work. 

Cloth 50 

What  Socialists  Think.    By  Charles  H.  Kerr. 

Paper 05 

What  the  Socialists  Would  Do  If  They  Won 

in  This  City.    By  A.  M.  Simons.    Paper. . .     .05 

When  Thing's  Were  Doing".    By  C.  A.  Steere. 

Cloth 1.00 

Where  We  Stand,  American  Socialism  Ex- 
plained.   By   John   Spargo.     Paper 05 

Why  a  Working-man  Should  Be  a  Socialist.  By 

Gaylord  Wilshire.    Paper 05 

Why  I  Am  a  Socialist.  By  George  D.  Herron. 

Paper 05 

Wolves,  The.    By  Robert  A.  Wason.    Paper..     .10 

Woman  and  Socialism.  By  May  Walden.  Pa- 
per       .05 

Woman    and   the    Social    Problem.    By    May 

Wood  Simons.    Paper 05 

Woman  Under  Socialism.    By  August  Bebel. 

Cloth 1.00 

World's  Revolutions,  The.    By  Ernest  Unter- 

mann.    Cloth 50 

Any  book  In  this  list  mailed  promptly  on  re- 
ceipt of  price.  We  do  not  allow  credit;  we  do  not 
sell  books  of  other  publishers;  we  do  not  re- 
ceive subscriptions  for  any  periodical  except  the 
International  Socialist  Review.  This  is  an  80- 
page  monthly,  every  page  intensely  interesting*  to 
active  socialists.  A  Study  Course  in  Socialism, 
conducted  by  Joseph  E.  Cohen,  started  in  the 
issue  for  November,  1908.  Ten  cents  a  copy,  25 
cents  for  3  months;  50  cents  for  6  months;  $1.00 
a  year.    Address 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY  (Co-operative) 

153  EAST   KINZIE   STREET 

CHICAGO 


Lafargue's  Books 

Paul  Lafargue  is  one  of  the  ablest  and 
beyond  doubt  the  most  charming  of  the 
socialist  writers  of  Europe.  Charles  H. 
Kerr  has  translated  three  of  his  books. 

Social  and  Philosophical  Studies  shows 
how  people's  ideas  of  religion,  justice  and 
goodness  are  definitely  related  to  the 
mode  of  production  by  which  their  ma- 
terial wants  are  satisfied. 

The  Right  to  Be  Lazy  and  Other  Stud- 
ies contains  six  clear,  strong  essays  ap- 
pealing to  the  self-interest  and  the  com- 
mon sense  of  the  wage-workers  exploited 
under  capitalism. 

The  Sale  of  an  Appetite,  illustrated 
with  original  drawings  by  Dorothy 
Deene,  is  a  powerful,  realistic  story  of  a 
typical  wage-worker. 

Each  volume  sold  separately  in  cloth  at 
50  cents,  postpaid. 

CHARLES   H.   KERR   &   COMPANY 
153  East  Kinzie  St.,  Chicago 


THE  COMMON  SENSE 
OF  SOCIALISM 


A  Series  of    Letters  Addressed   to 
Jonathan   Edwards,  of  Pittsburg 


By  JOHJ^  SPARGO 


TpHIS  is  Mr.  Spargo's  latest  and  best  book, 
and  it  is  just  the  thing  for  a  busy  man  or 
woman  who  wants  the  case  for  socialism 
plainly  and  pleasantly  stated  in  a  volume  of 
moderate  size.  It  is  scientific,  yet  easy  and 
readable.  It  is  fearless,  yet  good-tempered. 
It  will  make  votes  that  will  stick. 

Cloth,  $1.00;  paper,  25  cents;  postpaid. 


CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

153   KINZIE   STREET   CHICAQO 


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This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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